Extreme Prejudice
by JMK758
Summary: During a Survey mission, the Away Team is captured, interrogated to force them to reveal enemy secrets, and one of them pays the ultimate price. Please R&R.
1. Disaster

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Enterprise and everything connected with it, except Tia Anlor (Tee-ah' Ahn'-lor), who belongs to me and I'm not sharing. (G)

This is the 28th story in this series, the others being 'Casting Call', 'Golden Girl'; 'A Few Words'; 'Glistni'; 'Small Time'; 'Acquisition'; 'What Do I Do Now?'; 'For Want of Kilyiis'; 'Daasii'; 'Noblesse Oblige'; 'Roses and Thorny'; 'Time and Again', 'House of Cards', 'Starlight Maiden', 'Armageddon', 'Luuru', 'Cross and Crown', 'Pulsar', 'Face in the Dark Mirror', 'Time Stream', 'Treaty / Violation', 'Humiliatum', 'Clara', 'Life Goes On', 'Sufferance', 'The Court Martial of Hoshi Sato' and 'Empress Sato'. This story takes place about two weeks after 'Court Martial'. Tia has been on the Enterprise for about eleven months. Later stories include 'Fractured', 'Unification' and 'Two Golden Candles'.

Rating: M. Violence.

"When we start seeing enemies in everyone, we will never know peace."

Extreme Prejudice

by JMK758

Chapter One

Disaster

"Personal Log; Ensign Travis Mayweather, Wednesday, August 22, 0132 Hours. It doesn't happen very often, but I'm finally going to have a chance to get off the bridge and pilot a Shuttlepod to a planet when there is no life-or-death crisis, no one shooting at us and no First Contact or diplomatic worries. Just bring down Lt. Abrams and two of his staff from Life Sciences, wait a few hours while they collect their plant and spore specimens, then shuttle back.

"The best part is that since it's Gamma Shift – we entered orbit half an hour ago and the Captain will want a preliminary report from Life Sciences at the start of Alpha – and I'm on extra hours, I'll get to sleep in this morning.

"I hope Abrams will let me pick some flowers for Jennifer."

xxx

Lt. John Abrams, head of Life Sciences, walks with Travis Mayweather to the Launch Bay. Travis will be piloting Shuttlepod Two to Kitaris IV, a world with a diverse ecosphere but apparently uninhabited by 'higher' life forms; at least to the extent the sensors can detect. They carry several collection boxes; empty now but soon to be filled with a variety of interesting specimens. They and other pilots had made similar runs several times before.

It was one thing to let the ship's sensors collect readings on the planet's ecosphere; quite another to actually go down and see for one's self. This was one of the more pleasant duties aboard Enterprise and John Abrams considered himself lucky to have it. He is particularly proud of his team. All are consummate professionals who can be depended upon to perform their duties with the high degree of scientific discipline such a role calls for.

Just before the pair reaches the Launch Bay, an odd sound from the corridor behind them stops them. They turn back, curious; the sound seems to be an unusual rhythmic shuffle/clicking sound neither has heard before. Whatever it is, neither man has a clue except that it is coming closer, and quickly; very quickly indeed.

A moment later, from around the curve in the corridor, Ensign Elizabeth Cutler and Crewwoman Tia Anlor appear, hand in hand, _skipping_ toward them. Abram's mouth falls open in astonishment an instant before a grinning Cutler sees him and Travis standing outside the Bay and comes to such an abrupt halt she loses her balance when Tia, continuing her mad advance, skips past her, to be pulled to a stop an instant later.

Cutler stands before her Department Head and the ship's senior Pilot, absolutely mortified! Tia had also stopped, but she is still grinning in typically high elation.

"_What in the Name of God are you two doing_?" Abrams demands incredulously.

"Skipping." Tia answers with characteristic candor.

"_Sorry_, Sir." Liz apologizes, wishing the deck would just open up and consume her. She'd honestly expected the others to be in the Launching Bay already. She hadn't anticipated just how quickly they would cover the distance. "You see, sir, we were in my quarters -."

"I read had of when humans happy are some time 'skip' did, but idea what meant it I had not." Tia's tones are lyrical even when speaking English; her own language being even more lyrical than French. Her characteristic fractured speech was the combination of English words and Auran syntax, a trait she had never lost despite an almost photographic memory and nearly eleven months among humans.

"She asked me and, well, I tried to show her … and … I guess … it …got out of hand?"

"All the way from your _quarters_?"

"No, sir; it was just the last fifty meters or so. No one saw us, I _swear_!"

"Spoke we did of 'putting the Life back into Life Sciences'." Tia volunteered. Liz tried to shush her.

Abrams closes his eyes with a sigh, shaking his head. "Just get aboard."

"Yes, sir." Completely mortified, more so since Tia had volunteered that last piece of information from what, to this point, had been a private conversation; Liz leads her Auran friend through the Bay door.

When Abrams opens his eyes again, Travis is grinning at him. "What are you so happy about?" He demands, not really wanting to know.

"When was the last time you skipped?"

"I have _never_ skipped." Abrams declares, outraged.

"I'm way out of practice; it's been years." He admits, but then considers the two women. "I think it's time I got back into practice."

John sighs. Then he thinks about it.

"You're right."

x

The pre-launch checks accomplished in short order, Travis contacts the bridge. "Shuttlepod Two ready to depart."

"Good flying, Travis." Archer's voice comes back. "See you in four hours."

Travis is not surprised to find Archer on the bridge this late at 'night'. A new world rotating below them, a survey mission, the first of several … one would need rope and tackle to drag the Captain off the bridge. He would stay on while the shuttle launched and then, with nothing to do for four hours, he would turn in; but he would be waiting with barely contained anticipation for a report at the start of Alpha.

Travis turns back to where Abrams sits strapped into the seat one row back and on his right side. Behind him is a very subdued Liz Cutler, Tia strapped in next to her behind Travis. He meets Abrams' eyes even while speaking to Archer. "Have a good night. See you later, _Skipper_."

He tries not to let the grin on his face slip too much into his voice even as Abrams glares at him. Travis turns off the unit and tries to force the grin off his lips – at least while Abrams is looking.

The deck below the pod opens and the ship falls out of the bay. Travis fires the thrusters, extending the stabilizing wings on either side of the pod, directing the pod down to the green planet below.

x

"Say, Liz…" Abrams says, rotating his seat to face the woman behind him. He had been thinking of what Travis had said to him in private, and also that maybe he had missed out on something. Maybe it was Tia's perennial joie de vivre, but whatever it was, he found it appealing. Besides, he thinks, he cannot really be mad at Liz and wants to mend things, make it clear to her that he is not angry. "You know, when we get a free moment, maybe you can teach me to do that."

Liz, who had been dreading a reprimand, smiles at her chief. "I'd love to."

"As long as they don't have us on sensors." Travis quips as the ship enters the mesosphere. "All we need is for them to be seeing the four of us carousing like in some freaky square dance."

"Four of us?"

"Well, sure!" He exclaims, sparing a glance back at her. "You don't think I'm going to be left out of the fun, do you?"

"It's a deal." Liz agrees with a grin. Abrams turns his seat back around to face front as Travis brings the pod downward, entering the stratosphere.

They had already discussed the kind of terrain that would be best for the variety of specimens they would need. It was just a matter of finding a spot that fitted one of the choices.

x

While the men survey the passing topography, Liz turns to Tia, strapped into the seat across from her. "Well, it's 'official'." She announces, highly pleased.

"Official?" Tia asks, not following her.

"I'm showing." She smiles. "I measured myself when I got out of the shower before you came. 0.9 cm."

"Wow," John Abrams says drolly, turning his seat slightly, "almost a half an inch."

"Don't knock it, John." She 'retorts', a degree of playfulness underscoring their words. "Point nine is still point nine."

"No, I'm happy, I really am."

Something about his words, and the tone behind them, makes her look at him suspiciously. "All right, John, out with it."

"No, really. Up to this point, I didn't believe you _were_ pregnant. I thought it was just an excuse for asking for light duty."

Liz laughs. "And how 'light' have my duties been?"

"'bout as light as you deserve."

"Ho-ho. You're welcome to measure me yourself."

"After you get out of the shower? No thanks. Cein will punch me in the nose."

"I thought you liked living dangerously."

"Accent on the 'living'."

"You know," Liz continues to Tia, "I am just really getting used to this whole thing, but Jim loves it. He says 'Beth, you've never looked more glowing', and corny romantic stuff like that."

Travis glances back. "Don't knock 'corny romance'." He advises.

"Oh, I'm not."

"I notice he's the only one who ever calls you 'Beth'." John observes.

"He's the only one who ever does a _lot_ of things with me."

"Oh-_kay_. Too much _farging_ information."

Liz laughs delightedly.

x

"How's this?" Travis asks, pointing out the viewport. Abrams turns back around. They are flying at an altitude of 800 feet, and before them is a line of trees on the left of a long, grassy field, stretching on to the horizon. To the right of the long strip is a deep ravine where an ancient river had cut into the soil to a depth of at least 500 feet, deep enough so that at this angle they cannot see the bottom. The strata on the walls of the valley show a variety of layers, each clearly with its own story to tell. The 'forest' is only on the left side of the ravine, the right side rocky and bare for more than a kilometer before the next line of vegetation and foliage.

"Perfect." Abrams says. "We can get a –." The ship rocks violently to port and a half-meter wide hole appears in the starboard fore of the cabin as the pod seems to drop out from under them! Instantly atmosphere rushes out, rapidly equalizing pressure from the high altitude before rushing back in with the speed of their fall, turning the pod into a wind tunnel! The ship starts to list to starboard, rotating on its axis.

"We've lost our starboard stabilizer! Inertial field is out! Hang on!" Travis yells over the wind as they are buffeted about in their seats. The pod continues to roll to starboard as he checks what readings are left on the forward display. "We've lost the entire damn _wing_! I can't hold her up! Starboard engine is out!"

The pod rolls over and over as the three scientists cling to the straps holding them secure as Travis tries to fight the spin. Emergency systems have locked the seats into a forward facing position. While desperately trying to channel thrusts from the one working engine and the maneuvering thrusters to level their flight, he slaps the communications control. "Mayday, Mayday, Enterprise – _Mayday!_" He shouts over the roaring wind. "We have been attacked and are out of control, unable to maintain altitude. Need immediate assistance! Can you beam us out?"

There is no answer.

The ship is going down, screaming from 800 feet toward the grassy field between the trees and the ravine. "Brace yourselves!" He shouts, barely heard over the roar of the wind through the shuttle, trying to time the ship's rotation to apply as much thrust as he can at the right instant to get the craft leveled and nose up before the pod slams into the ground!

A second before they hit, the pod is at the right orientation and Travis puts everything into a burst that pushes the nose upward and he tries to halt their spin, but the remaining thrusters cannot accommodate the inertial needs quickly enough. The stern hits hard and the ship bounces, rearing upward and over in a scream of metal, driving the nose into the ground. The pod, following its inertial roll, spins end over end, bow and stern striking the rocky terrain with brutal force, bouncing into the air to crash down over and over, and the ship rolls rightward, everything within slammed about violently.

The inside of the wildly rolling, bouncing Shuttlepod is filled with a deafening cacophony of thunderous impacts and shrieks of rending metal as the pod impacts over and over on all sides, battering everyone within mercilessly.

Liz, clinging to her seat, shrieks in horror and reaches frantically, uselessly, as the restraints on the seat before her break loose and John Abrams is launched 'upward', his body colliding with an oncoming bulkhead, which slams him across the cabin.

The ship does not just roll, but bounces into the air over and over to slam into the ground with bone shattering crashes as it turns clockwise along its axis, and the women watch, horrified as their friend's body is battered about the cabin, far beyond reach or help as they cling desperately to their own restraints, praying those too will not give way and hurtle them about the cabin with deadly force.

Suddenly there is nothing but the roaring wind. No more bouncing, no tearing, just the wind and the sickeningly spinning shuttle rotating clockwise on its long axis. "_Brace for impact_!" Travis shouts as they fall over the cliff, 500 feet from the river bank below. He tries the controls, but there is no response. There are no working thrusters left to use.

It takes about three more seconds as they rotate and then, as they turn upside down, there is a titanic crash, the reinforced ceiling buckling, the three slammed 'upward' against their harnesses!


	2. Capture

Chapter Two

Capture

Aboard Enterprise, the urgent 'Mayday' sets off a fury of activity. "I've lost contact! He said they were out of control; now I have nothing." Richard Malloy, the Gamma Shift Communications Officer, reports.

"Try to get them back." Archer, who had been about to call it a night, turns to Tina Parker; who occupies T'Pol's Science Station on the third shift. "What do you have, Ensign?"

"I have no readings on the shuttle."

"None?" Archer demands.

"No, sir." The woman's subdued voice is more chilling than a scream. "No debris, no energy readings; no signals of any kind. There is an energy field saturating the area. It appeared a moment after the 'Mayday' and covers an area seventy kilometers in diameter." She works for a few more seconds. Archer looks at the viewscreen, imagining the power needed to blanket so vast an area. He anticipates the reason for such a tremendous output; and does not like any of his conclusions. "I'm trying to extrapolate their possible positions based upon their previous trajectory from the point where the distress signal was cut off. If they stayed on the same course, they could have gone down anywhere in a fifteen kilometer range."

"Put everything we have into it." Archer directs, turning his eyes back to the huge planet below. Moments before, it had looked so innocuous, so inviting. "_Find_ them!"

xxx

Elizabeth Cutler gradually becomes aware of feeling returning to her body. She truly wishes that it had not.

The first thing she knows is silence; the utter silence of death. Then there is the pressure of the restraints digging into her shoulders and stomach. Her hands are held high over her head, her knees bent up high, and she has a splitting headache; which pain contends for supremacy with a hundred other aches that gradually make themselves known as she regains full consciousness.

Her eyes are crusted over, and when she forces them open, squinting against a dry irritation, everything about her is white. She is hanging upside down in the harnessed seat, her short hair hanging 'above' her. She forces herself to look about. Travis is hanging from the pilot seat even as she is, and he is completely white as well. Every surface, everything in sight is white, and in her mind the words 'fire suppression' click into place. After the merciless battering the pod took, she is surprised and grateful that it still works.

There must have been a fire somewhere, perhaps several after she'd lost consciousness from the impact, and high powered jets from multiple points in the pod covered everything in a smothering powder.

Drawing her arms back 'down', trying to move slowly against the pain of even that act, she carefully brushes the powder from her eyes, managing to open them completely.

x

The pod is smashed. Dented, torn and rent, smoldering from the last of fires that had burned themselves out inside panels, holes gaping in the battered hull, the ceiling caved in 'above' them by the final titanic impact; the ship will never fly again.

She looks ahead, but the seat before her is empty. Frantic, she turns to her left, rewarding herself with a wrenching pain in her neck followed by the realization that Tia is also gone! An icy hand clutches her heart – not to lose _two_ friends. No!

Then she realizes the silence she thought was complete is not. There is a soft whispering sound she had not discerned before, and she turns more carefully, looking up, or rather 'down' at the buckled and caved in ceiling above/below her.

Tia kneels beside the still body of John Abrams. Liz can see from the disturbed surface of the powder that she had straightened his body, though leaving him face down. Both of them are so covered in white powder that nothing of them can be distinguished. Her whispered words also cannot be discerned, but Elizabeth realizes she is praying in Auran, her hands held cupped before her, held over John's head. As she prays, she parts her hands very slightly, as if allowing something to flow through onto the body as she passes her hands from his head downward to his feet, the prayer concluding as she opens her hands completely over his feet, having symbolically showered his body with something.

x

Hearing a sound, Tia turns and looks up, seeing Liz is conscious, looking 'down' at her. She stands up very carefully, cautious of her own pains, powder falling from her yet in no way completely uncovering her. Except for her golden eyes, she is completely white. She carefully makes her way to her friend, fighting both pain and the uneven surface of the shattered 'ceiling'. Several rocks are visible through the rent hull. She stops before Liz, and runs a tricorder over her body.

"You all right are." She says in carefully controlled tones that barely hide her pain, her voice raspy.

"That's what you say." Liz 'retorts', feeling her own throat dry. She realizes they must both have breathed in some of the suppression powder. It was supposed to be harmless. She figures they'd soon find out.

"I you thought best to move not." Cautiously opening one latch at a time, she very carefully eases Liz down. Neither woman allows herself to reveal how much this hurts.

"John?" Liz asks when she regains her feet.

"He dead is." When Liz first saw him she had known, but the words still hit hard. Before this she could have hope. From now on, she cannot deny it, can have no hope. She fights hard to keep her control. She had worked closely with Abrams since Enterprise first left space dock. She fights to keep down the grief, not to give in to the overwhelming emotion, to concentrate on the most important thing. They had been shot down, so even more than usual their greatest concern is survival.

"How's Travis?"

The reply comes from the pilot seat. "Travis is upside down."

"Alive." Tia completes her answer with a forced grin as they go to help their friend.

x

Working together, they get Travis on his feet. When he looks down at the body lying upon the ceiling, there are no words to say. The trio; so covered in white that their features cannot even be discerned, tries to take stock of their situation.

"How are you?" Travis asks them. Liz cautiously reaches up to touch her shoulders.

"Even my bruises have bruises." Tia nods in agreement. "But altogether, I'm better off than John."

"Daai."

Travis looks around the cramped and dented ship. "Let's see what works."

A few seconds struggling with the controls answer the question for them. Nothing works. Many of the systems, now seen upside down, are charred. The Pod is a total loss. Holed, dented and crumpled. It will never launch again.

"We have survival rations." Travis tells them. "We won't starve, but main power is out."

"The medikit intact is." Tia reports; closing it.

"The emergency beacon is on," Liz tells them, "but I can't get anything but static. I think we're being jammed."

"Worse than that, we were shot down. We have to assume that whoever did it will be coming after us. They're not likely to assume we were killed in the crash. Let's gather what we can, and find some shelter."

A few moments are all it takes to assemble their supplies. "Medkit; field rations for six, if you can choke them down; communicators; two phase pistols; emergency transponder beacon." Travis counted off. "If we can get outside the area of this jamming field, Enterprise might pick us up."

Liz opens a canister of water, taking a drink and passing it to Tia. It barely relieves the dryness in her mouth and throat. She would gladly drink the entire canister if they did not have to conserve their supplies. In such situations, the rule is to use only what you really have to, even if it is not enough.

"Have you any idea how wide the area is?"

"No, but I'm betting they won't turn it off until they've got us, so we'd better move out." He directs, accepting the canister.

x

They try to push open the hatch, but the outer casing of the door is warped, and it will not open more than an inch or so. They must push the normally upward swinging hatch down. "Put your backs into it." Travis urges, earning a glare from Cutler. "Ladies." He concludes with an irrepressible grin. He tries to brace himself in the slippery powder, but cannot get any traction. It takes considerable effort and the loud rending of metal, but between the three of them they finally manage to pry the door open and downward, the 'lower' part swinging up more easily. Stepping down the ramp of the normally upraised door and out onto the surface, they take stock of their situation.

Shuttlepod Two lies on its back, smoldering, holed, twisted and bent; a total loss. They are in a deep valley beside a shallow stream, but the high hills on either side give testimony to millennia of erosion. It is clear that, in the 'moist season', the entire valley would be a river, but it has been some time since the full flow of the river has passed through, long enough for sparse dark green vegetation to take hold in the thin soil on either side of the stream. There is little more than sparse spots of grass on the otherwise gravelly surface; no large bushes have taken hold in this area. The entire valley is otherwise nothing but boulders and rocks too large to be shifted by anything less than a deluge.

The sky is a crisp blue spotted by fluffy white clouds. There is nothing visible that would indicate any kind of habitation on the planet, except for the fact that they had been shot down.

x

"Which way?" Cutler asks, very carefully brushing more of the white powder from about her eyes. Her efforts do nothing to clear it; a thin coating of white still remains about her eyes.

"What do you get on the tricorder?"

She presses the unit together. "Nada."

Tia turns to her. "Horses?" She asks uncertainly.

"What?" Cutler looks about, finding none.

Tia is embarrassed. "Anston. I confused was. 'Nada' much the Auran 'naada' like is, which an animal slightly your 'horse' like is to us means. I do know 'nada' not. You I thought 'horses' detected."

Liz smiles, grateful to be able to even in this grim situation. "It means 'nothing'; 'nyasura'." She says in Auran. "Maybe you'd better turn on the UT."

Normally Tia would not have, but she sees the undeniable wisdom of Liz's words. English alone was hard enough, 'slang' still virtually incomprehensible, but if they do encounter the natives of this planet who had shot them down; something none of them were looking forward to; she would be totally lost. She draws the small Universal Translator from a pocket in her left sleeve, turns the device on and returns it.

x

Liz turns back to Travis, finishing her thought. "There's a blanketing field around this whole area, the same one that's jamming our Comm. I can't get a thing on the tricorder." She looks up into the man's stark, powder white face. "It's up to you."

"Sometimes being senior rots."

"Rots?" Tia asks. This time, though his words were clear – and to her in fluent Auran – it was the concept that left her at a loss.

"Never mind." He tells her somewhat less than patiently.

He looks about, trying to judge what he remembers of their flight path. He did not want to head toward their attackers, but he had not had a view into the valley bed from the air, and the twisting, rolling crash had completely disoriented all three of them. There was no way to judge from the position of the pod if, by going one way of the other, he would be leading them into safety or danger.

"Upstream." He decides. Cutler, as disoriented as he, nods.

"Upstream it is."

x

A loud 'crack' suddenly explodes from before them which echoes up and down the valley even as a metallic projectile slams into the Shuttlepod hull to ricochet loudly into the sky, streaking away in a lowering whistle. The three try to duck, but there is no cover for them.

"Kulrax!" A commanding voice booms out. Though the word is unknown, the tone is very clear, and none of the three move a muscle. "Ku merk gre valta grun."

The three exchange looks, then the two Ensigns look inquiringly to Tia. "It is on." She confirms, speaking in Auran. They read on her lips that she'd said 'vas juis sei'; that, had she used English, she would have said 'it on is'.

"It'll take a few minutes for the computer to work out language and syntax." Travis tells them what they already know only too well. He calls out more loudly: "Hold your fire! We're friends."

He knows it does not matter what he says, so long as he gets them to speak.

"Nak kros te kylrni. Nak kros."

Taking a chance; a big one, he realizes; Travis very slowly straightens up, his hands held high above his head. When he is not immediately shot, Liz and Tia very cautiously straighten as well, holding their empty hands high.

They can see, behind the cover of several huge boulders, at least six helmeted soldiers crouching down, all of them aiming long rifles at them. "Maz tak." The 'spokesman' yells. A moment later he brandishes the rifle more threateningly. "Maz tak."

"I think he wants us to put down our supplies." Tia whispers, the UT having absolutely no trouble rendering her Auran words, the tones now even more 'lyrical'.

Such a pity, Travis thinks; that the UT doesn't have nearly a year's worth of this language in its database. But then, it does seem like a logical next step.

Very slowly, they bring their hands down long enough to remove the carrying straps of their supplies from their shoulders and ease them carefully to the ground.

x

Not all of the supplies had been exposed to the smothering white powder, so when these items of color are set down, the Enterprise crew realize that they probably look like a trio of ghosts. But at least, thus far, they had not provoked their adversaries into making them literally so.

Six soldiers cautiously break cover, not relaxing their vigilance for a moment. They spread out so that, while three of the inner six approached the Enterprise crew, the one on the far left and the two on the right cover them from further back. At no moment does any soldier cross the line of fire of any other.

The three forward soldiers look the space travelers over carefully, but nothing of their features or uniforms can be discerned beyond the white covering them from crown to feet.

The soldiers, however, can be clearly discerned. Their clothing is a brownish grey one piece uniform with dark green rank insignia in shapes that mean nothing to the Enterprise crew, save that the symbols on the shoulders of the 'spokesman' are a semi circle split by a diagonal slash, the flat side of the circle toward the front of the body, while the others bear semicircles only. For now, Travis mentally designates him 'Squad Leader'. Their belts are packets of containers not unlike a WWIII soldier's utility belt, while their metallic helmets seem a cross between WWI American and Korean Civil War North – none of which would mean anything to their captors had they known.

"Ker plaz vak xej." The spokesman / Squad Leader commands. The Enterprise crew exchange glances, wishing the UT would kick in. The Squad Leader emphatically points his rifle between Travis' eyes. "_Ker plaz vak xej_." The language has a rough, gutteral aspect that reminds them of the coarseness of German, as opposed to the gentle softness of French. This language, however, is nothing like either.

"I can't understand you!" Travis exclaims as emphatically. If nothing else, speaking English would point out the language difficulty – before the Squad Leader puts a hole in Travis head.

"Laz plaxqi."

"I said I don't know what you're saying."

The man looks confused, but at least he does not shoot. A moment later he lowers his rifle, but he is the only one to do so. He looks back to his fellows. "Zin grixnq vonw mazkqis."

x

Where tongues failed, rifle signals communicate excellently, and the signal the team gets is to empty all their pockets and then move out in the direction the soldiers had come, slowly and cautiously. Leaving their ship and supplies behind, they start out across the rocky terrain, following the river's path upstream.

The Squad Leader leads the way, keeping a cautious eye on the captives. Two soldiers take positions at 10:00 and 2:00, fifteen feet out, rifles trained on the trio. The three soldiers behind carry the 'abandoned' supplies, including communicators and tricorders the trio had seriously not wanted to lose; and very ready rifles.

Before they go even two hundred meters, while still in sight of the Shuttle, a wind picks up from behind, swirling about them. While it blows some of the powder free, it also catches up Tia's waist length hair, swirling it in a white cloud about her head, striking powder into her face. Tia instinctively catches up her hair, brushing it hard away and running her hands rapidly over her face, dislodging a white cloud about her. "Tia!" Travis exclaims warningly against her sudden movements, but the damage is already done. The soldiers respond rapidly to Tia's frantic actions, deploying about her in a semicircle some fifteen feet out, the Squad Leader furthest away in front of them.

Standing still now, Tia very cautiously holds herself motionless, but the cloud of white has dissipated about her, leaving much of her golden tresses visible through the remaining white. From the reactions of the soldiers, golden hair is as unexpected as a golden face.

"Tia, talk to them." Travis says very carefully, barely moving his lips.

"What shall I say?" She asks as cautiously.

"The truth." Liz says through motionless lips. "I don't think they'll understand unless the UT _finally_ decides to kick in, but I don't think they like 'blondes'."

"I am Auran." She tells them, looking from one soldier to another, trying her best to appear unthreatening. Travis and Liz hear her Auran words translated into fluent colloquial English; it is anyone's guess what the soldiers hear. "I am not like you. I am not from this planet."

"Kaz rak," the Squad Leader orders. One of the soldiers steps forward cautiously from the left side, extending his hand and brushes several times at the powder covering Tia's cheek, uncovering her golden hued skin.

The response is electrifying. It sets off a furious series of exclamations and orders as the soldiers withdraw to a safer distance.

"They _definitely_ don't like 'blondes'." Liz says.

A moment later the Squad Leader raises his rifle to his shoulder, and the valley echoes with the sound of thunder!

x

The terrible blast reverberates up and down the valley off its high walls of stone as Tia is blasted backward off her feet, a spray of gold erupting from the center of her chest! She falls heavily to the stone river bed and lies motionless.

"TIA!" Liz shrieks, heedless of the rifles swinging toward her as she stares in horror at her friend. Tia Anlor lies still on her back, a patch of golden blood expanding rapidly into the white powder in the middle of her chest. Liz turns on the Squad Leader. "_You **Bastard**_!" She screams, charging the man.

"NO, LIZ!" Travis cries, too far from her to interfere. She gets three steps, heedless of the soldier she has to pass, but the man reverses his rifle and slams the butt of it into her face. Liz goes down hard onto her back, stunned.

"Zaza krani suvir." The Squad Leader orders sharply.

Three of the soldiers grab Travis, wrestling him to the edge of the shallow river and throw him in, drenching him. The other two yank Liz to her feet, and would have thrown the dazed woman bodily into the water had Travis not regained his footing and turned in time to catch her, but they both fall back into the water with a loud splash.

The water is not deep enough for an uninjured man to risk drowning, and it also manages to revive Liz. When he gets a look at her, blood flows from her nose to replace the gore washed off by the water, and he can see both her eyes will certainly be blackened, but she is conscious enough that they can both get to their feet in the water. The stream has washed the powder from their uniforms and skin, leaving them exposed.

"Tia." Liz exclaims, about to take a step toward where the younger woman lies, but Travis restrains her.

"We can't help her." He whispers. She turns, looking up at him, but in her devastated eyes he can see that she understands his message.

Tia Anlor is dead, but if they are cautious they might survive.

Elizabeth Cutler looks out from the water to the white covered body of her friend, the horrible stain of golden blood in the center of her chest a painful smear Liz knows she will keep in her soul for the rest of her life. As Travis, obeying the signals of their captors, helps her out to the dry land, Liz knows that the wetness on her face now has nothing to do with the stream.


	3. Prisoners

Chapter Three

Prisoners

As soon as they step from the stream Travis and Liz are roughly grabbed, their arms wrenched behind their backs. Each wrist is bound separately with a short cord, then their arms are crossed behind them and the cords tied tightly above their elbows. After the pain inflicted by the crash, this position is extremely uncomfortable.

During all this rough treatment, Liz can not pull her eyes from the still body of her friend. Grief vies with remorse, the grief of Tia's meaningless death on this stagnant, backwater planet with the pain she would have to convey to Charles Tucker – if she lived – of how his beloved had met her ignoble end.

She can barely contain her emotion as she and Travis are forced to continue their march. This was _supposed_ to be a spore and flora gathering survey, a simple sample run. Now John Abrams and Tia Anlor are both dead, and neither Liz nor Travis can be sure of surviving the hour.

x

Arms bound tightly behind them, they are marched along the river bank at a rapid pace intended to prevent them from breaking away. Neither can hide from the other their grief. It is one thing to say they will have to bury their feelings in concentration on working out just how they will escape; quite another to actually do it.

The soldiers flank them on either side, the last two taking up the rear of the column. Then, without warning, the phalanx turns and start to ascend the left bank.

It is a difficult climb without the use of hands, but none of the soldiers is inclined to help, requiring a steady pace with all too clear signals of their rifles. At one point Travis tries to move closer to Elizabeth, but is warned away by the soldier on his left. Liz looks back with an expression of gratitude and warning on her bloodstained face.

Both her eyes are already darkened, dried blood having formed a rivulet down the left side of her face.

They reach the top of the deep valley without falling, an impressive enough accomplishment, but as they survey the rocky landscape – the line of forest on the other side of the valley – they are halted. They realize they had been turned around by the orientation of the shuttle following its rolling, bouncing crash, and had been following the path back from where they'd come. They realize that what had been the right bank from above the valley was now the left side as they retraced their path. Even if they had not been immediately captured, the decision to follow the river upstream would have led them into danger.

One of the soldiers kneels down upon the ground, doing something neither Liz nor Travis can see, but a moment later a five foot square section of rocky ground drops away from before them, opening on a hinge on the near side, the square trap door sloping away to reveal the mouth of a dark tunnel.

The Enterprise officers are impressed. Neither had noticed the camouflaged entrance.

x

Directed onto the trap door, they are herded into the tunnel, which continues to descend along a 45 degree incline seemingly hewn out of the bedrock. When all the soldiers are in the tunnel, the last does something to a well concealed control on the right wall and the trapdoor ascends into place, taking the light with it.

The tunnel which had seemed to descend forever before them into gloomy darkness now becomes black as pitch. Absolutely no light remains, and the darkness presses against their eyes with oppressive force. They are given no time to adjust or prepare themselves, but are roughly shoved forward, having to set a brisk pace to keep from falling.

Each can appreciate the strategy of this black tunnel, even if neither enjoys it. Any attacker who breached the outer 'door' and tried to descend would be backlit while defenders could fire upon them from the darkness, perhaps from unseen niches in the walls on either side of this steep tunnel. The plan is elegant in its simplicity, and they have to figure out how to get a cautionary warning to the Enterprise.

x

They descend for a long time, Travis counting the steps, before the surface beneath their feet changes from a sharp incline to the more familiar feeling of horizontal metal. They are marched several meters along this new surface before rough hands on their arms jerk them to a sudden stop. Behind them a heavy metal door slams with a deep, reverberating 'clang' of ominous finality and a searing burst of light assaults their eyes.

Unable to protect their eyes from the painfully intense light; their wide, dark-accustomed eyes seared in the first moment by the unexpected burst; they are blinded by the glare, yet dare not keep their eyes closed long. Squinting against the painful illumination, they are marched to their right and out of a metal chamber.

Travis, having seen just a tiny aspect of the room, can discern openings where walls lined with sharpshooters would catch their blinded prey in deadly crossfire.

When they come out, their eyes watering from the searing intensity, they can barely see in the more subdued light of the next chamber, unable to perceive anything through the visual ghosts imprinted on their stunned retina. It is several moments of blind walking before they can see anything at all, and what they finally manage to see is disheartening indeed.

x

They are passing through a long metal lined corridor, one of several that branch out at intersections set at regular intervals. Travis still tries to count the steps of their rapid march, in hopes of plotting an escape through searing light and blinding darkness to a concealed control and a run through unobstructed ground past unknown numbers of concealed defenses. It is not a pleasant plan.

The people they pass, intent on their own purposes, are without exception uniformed in brown material. There seems little to distinguish men from women; all wear the same design of clothing. There are a few distinctions in terms of patches or insignia that at the moment mean nothing to the Enterprise team, but on the whole the people they pass are all of a kind.

All regard the wet, blue uniformed newcomers with small measures of interest. Travis, in particular, seems notable to them; mostly, he suspects, because of his dark complexion.

There seem to be few differences in skin or hair among the soldiers they pass. They are distinctly humanoid, more so than many either had seen in a while, but all have a pallor that, in a human, would have indicated a long term lack of exposure to sunlight – but among these people neither can be sure. Their skin has a certain grayish tint to it that may or may not be natural, but with no one to compare it to the Enterprise team can draw no conclusions. Certainly Liz, with her long experience in biology, is not about to put forth even a conjecture, let alone a theory. Not yet.

They are struck, however, by the antipathy; or active dislike, on the face of every person they pass, coupled with a degree of satisfaction at the sight of Liz's bruised and bloodied features that neither of them likes. It seems as though there were nothing unusual, but quite gratifying, about a bloody prisoner being forced through the corridors.

x

They are marched for a long time through corridors, sometimes turning left, sometimes right. The signs on the walls and doors mean nothing to them, and each wishes that Hoshi Sato was with them now.

Finally they reach a non-descript door bearing an uninformative sign in a language made up mostly of sharp angles, no gentle curves at all. Without fanfare or announcement, it is opened and they are pushed in. The door slams shut behind them.

The room they find themselves alone in is completely bare. Neither believes either of these two conditions. But for the moment, the UT is gone too, and they can converse freely.

"Any idea where we are?" Liz asks.

"About half a kilometer from the Pod."

And how far down?"

"Walking 45 degrees, down the hypotenuse of a right triangle, as 'deep' as it is 'long'. By my count, we're a hundred fifty meters deep, and that far from the entrance."

"Mine too." She says, glad of the confirmation, her voice odd. "Then right ninety two meters, left twenty three; another left seventeen…"

"And then right eleven." He concludes.

"This looks like a military base, but it also looks to have been here for a long time."

"Did you notice their faces?"

"They aren't just distrustful, they don't just dislike us; they _hate_ us."

"People generally don't hate me until they get to know me."

"That's not what Jen says." She quips.

"Very funny. How do you feel?"

"Well, as I said even my bruises have bruises from that damned harness; I can't breathe through my nose –."

"I noticed." He says with a wry grin, commenting on her nasal voice.

"Very funny." She retorts in turn. "But on the whole, I guess I could be worse." Neither of them explore this, thinking of the battered body of John Abrams in the shuttle, and of the young Auran left behind on the bank of the stream, both dead. Neither will willingly give into thoughts of their friends, doing their best to shut out grief – or at least to push it back while concerns of their own survival are paramount.

Neither will admit to the other that they cannot do so.

"Any guess what they want from us?" Liz asks after a few moments of silence burdened by sadness and regret. "You've been on a lot more landing parties than I have."

"Been captured by hostile forces a lot more than you have, too." He says ruefully. "It's never a pleasant experience. I think our only chance is going to be to co-operate, and try to contact the ship. Maybe we can negotiate."

"Can we get out of these ropes, first?"

"We can try." He gets behind her, trying to determine how the ropes are secured. Then they turn back to back, Travis trying to free her from memory.

x

They do not get the chance however, for a moment later the door flies open and several soldiers return and grab Travis, shoving Liz away where she falls onto the ground. She rolls through the fall, not hurt but very annoyed, hearing Travis' outraged protest over her rough treatment. She is unable to do anything except watch as they drag him out of the cell, slamming the door shut again.

Travis is forced along a long series of tunnels that he realizes must have been hewn out of the ground years before. They were once pristine, smooth and straight, but the packed dirt shows signs of considerable humidity and wear, and a general musty, airless smell pervades the entire establishment.

The lighting, now that he sees it through eyes not assaulted by blackness and intense light, is dimmer than Enterprise's. It is, however, impossible to tell yet if this is by design or necessity. He reminds himself that it is too soon to reach any conclusions.

During the trip, he sees indications that there is a considerable compliment of personnel here, now both uniformed and not. As he is forced deeper into the complex; he gets the sense that there are more people about than either of them had estimated, and that they have been there for a long time.

xxx

Deep in the ravine by the shallow river, the body of Tia Anlor lies upon the rocks, golden blood soaked into the front of her white powder bathed uniform from the wound in the center of her chest. She lies where she had fallen when she'd been unexpectedly shot, unmoving, not even her blood flowing any more.

Suddenly, with a sharp gasp, her golden eyes fly open and she winces tightly as searing pain flares through her chest. With terrible clarity she recalls the bullet she could not avoid slamming into her chest, knocking her off her feet, coming down hard on the rocks, her head striking one of them as light and pain both vanished.

She does not know how long she has lain there, only that she can not hear her friends, her head aches and her chest feels like a sledge hammer had slammed into her. This almost drowns out the dozens of aches from the rolling crash that had flung her over and over against the restraints of her seat; but every ache still announces itself with insistent clamor every time she tries to move.

She remembers being shot, can feel her breastbone broken, but the bullet obviously has not gone deeply, perhaps because it was slowed by that bone. She reaches up slowly, carefully, fighting the pain and touches her uniform. It is wet, and when she raises her hand it is covered in white powder drenched by cool golden blood.

She slowly raises her head, but it causes the pain in her chest to flare. More slowly, more cautiously, she raises her other hand to the point of pain behind her head. It is also wet, the flare of pain making her wince, and when she dares to move to bring her hand forward it too is smeared in golden blood.

"Krintax!" She breaths. She tilts her head back carefully, the pain in her chest protesting until she can see, well back behind her, the dented, smoldering and holed hull of Shuttlepod Two. She realizes that, if it is still smoldering, not too much time could have passed. She can not feel the bulk of the communicator in the sleeve pocket of her uniform, remembering it had been confiscated by the soldiers who had captured them. Even if their communications were no longer being jammed, she could not contact Enterprise that way.

'Li vas muur ti silpe.' She thinks, knowing if any help could be had, it is only by the Pod that she could get it; so she does 'have to reach it'. But it is easily two hundred val away, better than a hundred and eighty human meters!

Using her legs, she forces herself to turn over before she can reconsider, knowing if she lets herself do so her resolve would not fail, but she will hurt more by going slowly. She turns face down, feeling a _melyk_ kick her chest. She winces tightly, her breath stolen in a blast of pain. She lies still, gasping for air, trying to force the pain to fade.

She does not allow herself to think about the pain but reaches out, enduring it as much as she can. She can barely breathe, and every time she takes a breath it only hurts more. Fighting the pain down, digging her fingers into the rocks, she brings her legs up carefully beside her and tries to get what foothold she can. Taking a deep, careful breath, holding it, she pulls and pushes herself forward.

Her pent up breath explodes in an agonized shriek.

xxx

High in orbit above the planet, Enterprise continues to search with all its sensors when suddenly Hoshi looks up with a start, vastly surprised by something she has heard. She quickly works the controls on her board, and this flurry of activity is not missed by Archer or the others. "What have you got, Lieutenant?"

"A moment sir, please." She temporizes, continuing her work. Archer does not interrupt again until her rapid motions slow. Finally she looks up at him.

"I'm sorry, sir. It was a brief signal, a burst only, but I was hoping I could trace the source. I'm afraid that the best I got from the sensor logs was a general direction, out in the direction of Mintaka." Mintaka, also known as Delta Orionis, is a binary star system seen from Earth as the seventh brightest stars in the constellation Orion, the Hunter.

"What was it?"

"A short phrase. It was so brief I'd almost missed it, and so compressed it came through as one word. But it said 'Auran nic edalii'." Now it is Archer's turn to be surprised, but the look on Tucker's face reflects far deeper astonishment.

"'Auran we are'." He breathes quietly. It is as if the impossible had just materialized and slapped him in the face.

"Is there any chance of mistake?" Archer asks Hoshi. This is a possibility he wants eliminated right away. They had been transmitting a hail for weeks, and before he allows the one person it would have the most meaning for to know about it, he is going to be certain it was genuine.

"No, sir." Hoshi says definitely. "It came through on the same frequency that we have been using to transmit sporadic bursts of 'Auranli edal'; 'Auran I am'. This is _definitely_ a reply."

x

After they had learned of the existence of a party of refugees from the home planet of their alien 'guest' Tia Anlor, flying a stolen cruiser belonging to the race that had enslaved that planet; they had been transmitting a message on a very irregular interval. The message was sent in short bursts and on a frequency used by the Auran resistance movement but, hopefully, unknown to the Silurians. This had been going on for the past nine weeks, since shortly after Patricia McCabe had come aboard. It was a chancy thing, and uncertain of success. It depended on the Aurans who were fleeing to safety receiving the signal, trusting it to be from a safe source, and breaking radio silence long enough to reply.

If they were wrong, if the Silurians that were hunting them traced the message, or had actually sent it, then they would die.

x

"I don't think there will be any more, sir." Hoshi reports unnecessarily. "It was barely enough to establish a direction," she waves her left arm uncertainly, "toward that half of the galaxy."

He had not expected more. "All right, Lieutenant, transmit another burst. This time 'piggyback' our transponder code. If they trust us, let them come to us." There had never been a different plan. He looks at the planet upon the screen before them. "I just pray that we get her back to give her the 'good' news."

xxx

Travis Mayweather is brought along a confusing maze of tunnels. When his captors perceive he is counting the distance, or maybe it is by general caution, they bring him up, down and back numerous tunnels in an effort to confuse him with a welter of identical corridors, forcing him to count back to negate distances and revise his mental map.

Another man might get lost, might succumb to the confusing welter of directions and misdirections, but from birth on the Horizon he had been used to thinking in three 'unmapped' axis all his life – it would take more than these twists, turns and doubling back to disorient him. But it was becoming a long and uninformative walk, so he decided to allow a confused and bewildered – or frustrated – expression to cloud his features, whereupon the soldiers finally settled on a last few turns, bringing him to into an outer, then an inner office.

When they finally get to their destination, he has a clear picture of where he is, where Liz is, where the entrance to the tunnel is, and a healthy respect for the vast amount of mining needed to construct so vast a complex.

x

Both offices are set up as administrative establishments that have seen long use and better days. The light is dimmer than he would like, possibly the result of either diminishing resources or the levels these people are used to. It is generally dimmer throughout the establishment than is the daylight outside.

He tries to discern which it is, so that he can make his plans accordingly.

He is placed more forcefully than is necessary into a single chair set up before a massive desk, behind which sits a middle aged man wearing the ubiquitous brown uniform. It is of a finer cut than that of the other soldiers, containing more decorative emblems of rank or station.

Travis assumes this is the head man. He does not know their system of rank, but in his mind he terms this man 'Commandant'. His uniform is ornate enough for him to seem to be the one in charge; and for now that is good enough for Travis.

On the desk between them is arrayed the survival supplies from the shuttle, the confiscated trios of communicators, phase pistols and the UT. He notes the latter is active.

"Where am I?" Travis demands, trying to take the upper hand in addition to eliciting more words for the UT's matrix to decipher.

"We shall ask the questions." The officer retorts in sufficiently clear English. Apparently, the UT has obtained what it needed during conversations among the soldiers to allow translations. It is still like watching a badly dubbed movie, as the movement of lips does not match the words each side hears, but it is passable. The officer, surprised at first at having Travis' words repeated with barely an instant's delay from the small unit, picks it up. "Who are you?" He demands, mildly surprised to hear his words rendered virtually simultaneously into unintelligible gibberish which seems to mean something to the prisoner before him, for he responds in the same nonsense sounds.

"Ensign Travis Mayweather of the starship Enterprise." The device in his hand renders in turn.

x

The look the officer gives to his fellows as he puts down the UT is not good. Either they did not understand him, or they did not believe him.

"What are you doing here?"

"Transporting a Biological Research team from our ship. We were here to conduct a survey of this planet. We _thought_ it was uninhabited." As per Captain Archer's standing instruction, he made no attempt at all to conceal anything nor to deceive his captors. He just hoped they understood sincerity.

"Who is with you?"

"Ensign Elizabeth Cutler is still with me. Lieutenant John Abrams was killed in the crash when you shot us down; and Crewwoman Tia Anlor was shot by your soldiers!" Travis can not contain his mounting anger at the losses of his friends. "What I want to know is WHY?"

"We shall ask the questions here, Ensign. For instance, your skin is very strange. Where are you from?"

"Earth." Again a brief exchange among the soldiers.

"We've never heard of Earth. Where is it?"

"It's a planet fifty seven point eight two light years from here." He gives them the coordinates in right ascension and declination, not certain if they would mean anything, but trying to show that he is being cooperative and telling the truth.

"Fifty seven light years? Are you a fool, or do you think us so? You don't look Manaxian, but I'm sure you are at least in their employ. I'll give you one last chance to cooperate. Where are you from, what are your orders and what is you mission?"

Travis' spirits sink. Are these people as brilliant as Hoshi's former 'pet' 'Sluggo'? "I already _told_ you. We're from Earth – well, all but Tia and she's dead now! We're officers from the Starship Enterprise conducting exploration in this sector of the galaxy. My orders were to convey a group of Scientists from our Life Sciences department; Lt. John Abrams, Ensign Elizabeth Cutler and Crewwoman Tia Anlor, to conduct research on this _uninhabited_ planet. Now Abrams and Anlor are dead. If you'll just let me contact my ship, I can prove all this."

Not willing to do this, the 'Commandant' turns to one of his men. "Bring the other."

When they leave, Travis continues to try to convince the men of the truth of his statements, but it is not getting far. "We know your craft is from the Manaxian stronghold; you came from there on a direct line for our base. What was your _mission_?"

"Look, I told you what our mission is: Exploration. If our flight path came along the path leading from the direction of these 'Manaxians', that's just a _coincidence_. We were flying over the fertile region, looking for a place with a suitably diverse eco-structure to get some scientific testing done and collect samples. We're humans, not Manaxians, whatever or whoever they are. We know nothing of your planet or culture. Enterprise is here to _explore_; nothing more. Our sensors did not detect you _or_ your Manaxians. We thought this planet was _uninhabited_. We were obviously wrong. If you want us to, we'll leave and I promise you we'll _never_ come back!"

xxx

The pain in Tia's chest has spread to become almost unendurable as she pushes forward along the rocky ravine, dragging herself first with one arm, then the other, using her free hand to try to keep her wounded chest from contact as she pushes herself with her legs along the rocky ground. Every motion, every breath, is torment. Her head aches from the lump on it, but that is nothing at all, lost in the searing agony that flares through her chest every time she moves either arm. When she propels herself forward barely half a val at a time, the flaring pain makes it feel as though she is getting shot over and over again.

She does not allow herself to look up, to gauge her progress. She had done that before, and her spirits had sunk at her woeful progress and the distance she has yet to traverse. Now she focuses only on the ground before her, just that in reach, trying to find the best handhold on a rock that would not give way in the dry riverbed that would help her make the most progress with every torturous pull of arm and thrust of legs.

She looks down, and is instantly sorry, seeing golden blood dripping onto the ground. Her exertions have reopened the barely closed wound. Just a little now, but worse to come if she keeps it up. Auran blood clots more quickly than humans', but she had just rested long enough for the blood to stop flowing, not to begin to heal. That would take days. She knows she should stop, give her body a chance to recover again, for the bleeding to stop, but she has no idea what her friends are suffering. She has to keep moving, but carefully.

If she overextends herself, she could reopen the wound to the point where she would bleed to death in the bottom of this forsaken ravine, and be of no help to her friends. Then again, if she does not reach the ship, there is no chance of helping anyone.

Reaching out carefully, digging her feet in, she tries to push more with her feet than pull herself; concentrating on just keeping off the ground. But her next choice of anchoring rock is bad; it gives way and she falls hard onto her protecting hand, onto the rocks, that triply kranstaat melyk kicking her with vicious force. She lays upon the ground, agony ripping her chest open, searing pain with every gasp. She tries to get her breath back, to control her breathing and the pain. It hurts too much even to breathe. The pain is so intense she can barely think. She does not want to move again, but she must.

She curses feelingly, fighting the temptation to give in to the bitter tears that threaten to well up in her eyes. Even beyond a lifetime of restraint – since the occupation it had been drummed into her from infancy that an Auran does not _cry_ in public – her burning thirst stops her. She will not give in and waste a single drop of moisture.

After a long moment she dares to look up. "_Xynatye_!" A burst of pain joins the expletive ripped from her.

Still over fifty val to go.


	4. Incentive

Chapter Four

Incentive

The door to the Commandant's office opens again and two soldiers drag Elizabeth Cutler in and stand her between them, slightly to Travis' left, before the desk. They release her and step back to either side. Liz's arms are still firmly tied high behind her back, wrists tied to opposite elbows. The Squad Leader stands before her, another soldier behind. She is surrounded, boxed in on all four sides. Two more stand behind Travis as he remains seated before the desk.

The 'Commandant' behind the desk surveys her and the uniform that she and the male prisoner wear. "Your partner has told us an incredible story."

"It's all true." She declares.

"I told them everything." Travis tells her. "Enterprise, our Life Sciences survey team, Abrams, Tia, everything."

"The Manaxians are expert in subterfuge, as well you know."

"Look." Travis turns his upper body, displaying the patch emblazoned on his left sleeve. "This is our ship, Enterprise, in orbit about this planet." Liz turns slightly, showing her own arm to verify that the emblems match. "Just let us use our communicators, we'll prove everything."

The officer exchanges glances with his fellows. "This is better than the last try."

"What do you mean?" Liz asks. The officer looks up at her.

"You are clearly Manaxian spies; of that we are certain. I hope you'll be an incentive to your misguided partner to confess and tell us your real mission."

"It sounds like he's told you to whole story already. What 'incentive' can I give?"

Without warning, the 'Squad Leader' punches Liz hard in her face, knocking her backward into the arms of the soldiers who had dragged her in.

x

"_Hey_!" Travis yells, outraged. He tries to get to his feet, but the two soldiers behind him slam him back into the seat. Arms trapped behind him, he cannot get up. Liz hangs; head back, dazed in the arms of the soldiers who support her between them. She had been so caught off guard that she'd taken the punch full in her face, and struggles just to stay conscious against the pain.

The 'Commandant' turns to Travis. "I do not believe that under any form of torture you will reveal your secrets in a timely manner." The UT translates his words with cold precision. He glances meaningfully at Liz, still hanging dazed, bent back in the soldier's arms. She had been caught so unprepared for the attack that she hovers on the edge of consciousness. "But I believe you will do so in order to spare your woman."

The soldiers boost Liz upright, shocking her awake and the 'Squad Leader' punches her in her stomach, making her double over with an agonized cry. The soldiers hold her on her feet as she gasps, groaning.

"I shall now ask you again. And if I do not get a satisfactory answer, she will _inspire_ your cooperation." She is hauled violently upright, and he can see the blood trailing down her face.

The sight flames Travis' fury. He is outraged that they would assault a helpless woman – to say nothing of a good friend – to get him to 'confess'. "Damn you – I _told_ you the truth!"

"What are your orders?"

"I told you my orders – transportation of a Scientific Research team." The soldier behind Liz rams his fist into the small of her back, driving her forward with a ragged cry. "Damn it, _leave her alone_! I'm telling the _truth_." Travis tries to fight his way to his feet, but with his arms tied behind him he cannot oppose the strength of the two soldiers who keep him pinned to the chair. He manages to raise himself only a few inches against their combined strength, but their leverage undoes him and he is forced down again. The 'Squad Leader' standing before her rams his fist into Liz's stomach, doubling her over again with an agonized cry. "Leave her _alone_. She's _pregnant_, damn you! Leave her alone!"

She stands, doubled over, barely able to remain on her feet, and the soldier to her right rams his fist into her ribs as she cries out in agony.

x

"Tell me who you are."

"Ensign Travis Mayweather, pilot of the Starship Enterprise from Earth."

At the Squad Leader's signal, Liz is hauled upright. "_No!"_

His heavy fist slams into her face. She is driven backward, and he punches her even harder in her stomach. "Damn it, I told you she's _pregnant_! Stop it, leave her alone!"

"Tell us the truth."

"I told you _everything_!" Liz is forced upright and hit again, this time in her ribs by the guard on her left, her ragged cry tearing into Travis' conscience. "I told you the _truth_." The Leader's fist slams deep into her stomach as she doubles over, gasping brokenly; her knees giving out as she hangs weakly, unable to breathe.

"What are the Manaxian plans?" The 'Commandant' asks with horrible calmness, his manner a terrible counterpoint to the outrageous beating.

"I don't _know_ the Manaxians." Travis exclaims furiously. He wants to tear into all seven men, straining against the two who hold him down in his chair, straining at the tight ropes that hold his arms behind his back, longing to tear them all apart.

The Squad Leader grabs Liz by her hair and yanks her upright. "Stop it, damn you! I'm telling you the truth!" The soldier behind her hits her again, low in her back, driving her forward with a terrible cry. "Stop it!" The Squad Leader punches her again, this time ramming his fist into her right breast as she cries out in pain.

"Tell us." The 'Commandant' urges calmly, unmoved by Liz's pain.

"I've told you _everything_!" Travis shouts furiously, straining against the grip of the men holding him down in his chair.

The man on Liz's right slams his fist into her ribs and she cries out in agony, held upright by the pain and the tight hands gripping her bound arms. The Squad Leader rams his fist into her left breast, and the pain is so intense she cannot even scream. His other fist comes in hard again into her right breast, so hard she is nearly knocked out of the grip of the supporting soldiers. Three more times he hits her in her face, right and left blows knocking her head back and forth.

"What are the Manaxian plans?"

Travis stares at his friend hanging limply in the hands of the soldiers, barely able to breathe. " Bastards! Cowards. If you were men – take me on!"

"What are the Manaxian plans?"

"_I don't know_!"

As Liz manages to draw in a breath the 'Squad Leader' draws back his fist and hits her with all his strength below her abdomen. She is hit hard enough that she is almost driven out of the grip of the solders holding her on her feet, what little breath she has exploding out of her in a shriek.. When he backs away, she hangs in the grip of the two soldiers, gasping brokenly.

"Where are their forces?"

"We're not Manaxians! I don't _know_!"

At a signal from the 'Squad Leader' the soldiers holding Liz boost her upright, their feet catching hers to force her legs apart. Travis sees what he plans and strains out of his chair, his furious rush managing to get him to his feet before he is slammed back down again. "NO!"

The 'Squad Leader' takes a step back, comes in and his boot crashes hard between Liz's legs.

The woman goes stiff, head thrown back, face contorted in a mask of unendurable pain. So hurt she cannot even scream, she stands stiffly between the two soldiers for an eternal moment of searing agony, and then collapses like a puppet whose strings had been cut, her silence more terrible than any scream.

x

"You can stop this at any time." The Commandant tells him with deceptive mildness as Travis stares at Liz in sick horror. "Tell us your mission."

"_Damn_ you – I don't _have_ any mission. We're not _Manaxians_!"

The soldiers boost Liz up again, and she cries out as her ankles are trapped again. "I'm _told_ this is particularly excruciating for a woman." The Commandant tells him with false sympathy.

"No! Damn it – NO!"

Squad Leader steps in, his boot coming up even harder between Liz's legs. She stiffens, a long shriek of agony piercing the air, and when she collapses she is dropped to the floor, where she lays writhing, groaning and sobbing, unable to even reach with bound arms to relieve her pain.

Travis tries again to force himself out of his chair, but is slammed back down onto it. Arms bound tightly behind him, his strength is utterly useless against the two men who have leverage on their side. "You _bastards_ – I _told_ you we're not your enemy. Leave her _alone_!"

"This can continue indefinitely. We have found this to be a far more effective method of extracting information than personal torture. You may not care about yourself, but are you willing to let this woman _suffer_? To let her unborn infant _die_?"

"Damn you!" Travis rages, struggling to get out of the grip of the soldiers and get his hands about the 'Squad Leader's' throat. He cannot break free of the bonds or his rage. "_I've told you all there is_!"

x

The Commandant regards him for several moments; then looks over the instruments spread out on the desk before him. He picks up one of them. "What is this?"

"It's called a 'tricorder'. We use it to analyze things. It's a sensing device." He picks up another. "It's used for detecting bio-matter."

"And this?" He holds up the UT.

"A Universal Translator. It's what's allowing us to communicate."

"And transmits to your Manaxian colleagues?"

"No."

"Where are your associates?"

"They're in orbit."

"You still persist in this 'Enterprise' story?"

"It's the truth. Is there anything on that table that _looks_ Manaxian?"

He looks up with a great show of sad resignation. "Phase two." While one soldier keeps Travis pinned to the chair, the other wrestles it around to that it faces the other side of the room, a much larger area.

"Where are the Manaxians massing for their attack?"

"We don't know any Manaxians!"

Elizabeth Cutler is lying on her side, pain so suffusing her body that she cannot move, but one of the soldiers shoves her with his boot onto her back, bends over and clutches her breasts. Liz shrieks as she is hauled off the floor by her breasts and held upright in a merciless grip as Travis looks on in impotent fury.

"Where are the Manaxians?"

"I don't know about any Manaxians. I told – NO!"

The soldier holding Liz's breasts flings her toward the other soldiers as she screams in renewed agony.

She does not reach the 'Squad Leader' opposite her before he slams his fist into her face, the sharp sound of bone on bone loud in the room as she is knocked into another soldier, who intercepts her fall by punching her even harder in her right breast, knocking her away as she cries out in unending agony. The guard she falls toward slams his fist into her face, stunning her. Her fall is halted, but one of the other guards punches her in her lower back, striking her kidney and she collapses, falling heavily to the floor.

x

"You bastards! You want a fight – take me on!"

"We've found this to be a far more effective means of inspiring cooperation." The Commandant tells him in a shockingly pleasant voice.

"_Cowards_!"

"Simply tell us the truth, and you can end this."

One of the soldiers grabs Liz's short hair and pulls her up to her feet, her face a mask of pain.

"_God Damn You_!" Travis rages, struggling furiously against the two men who keep him pinned to the chair. "I told you _everything_. Our CO at Starfleet is Admiral Maxwell Forrest; our Captain is Jonathan Archer; we're from _Earth_. Starfleet is under the jurisdiction of the United Earth Space Probe Agency. We've never _heard_ of you or your war!"

The soldier holding Liz shoves her at his fellow, who punches her right breast so hard she is spun completely around, falling into another whose fist catches her under her left eye, knocking her away. "Stop! I'm telling you _everything_!"

They continue beating her, knocking the helpless, bound woman from one to another as she cries out in agony, so hurt she cannot even scream, unable to fall as they tighten the circle, pounding her body mercilessly with hard fists.

Travis, furiously raging, continues shouting all the information he can think of.

The beating continues to escalate in violence, the punches coming harder and faster as Liz is trapped within the tightening circle of the four men, barely able to breathe in time for the next cry of agony. Finally the circle is so tight she is pinned within it. There is barely enough room for any of the soldiers to continue pummeling the helpless woman.

x

"Enough." The Commandant says. Instantly the soldiers desist, backing away as Liz collapses to the floor. She is so hurt she cannot even pass out from the pain, but lays weeping. They stand watching her as she cries, her body racked by agonized sobs.

"Put them in cell B. Let her pain argue with him. We'll resume shortly; after she has convinced him to cooperate."

x

Two soldiers grab the sobbing woman, lifting her off the floor and dragging her out as she hangs between them. Travis is hauled to his feet and would like nothing more than to take on the entire room, but with both of them bound and Liz beaten, there is no way to win. He is shoved after her, and they are forced back the long trail to their cell. Liz is dragged along the tunnels, barely conscious, her groans and sobs tearing at Travis' soul.

xxx

The whistle of the intercom above her head pulls the Reverend Patricia McCabe out of a deep slumber, and she opens her eyes into the blackness of her cabin. Normally she sleeps with the blast shield closed over the viewport, so she would not be distracted by the hypnotic rush of stars. The starlight is diffused by the Doppler effect of the warp field breaking them into streams of color as they rush from right to left past her portside cabin, and normally would be soothing, but tonight she is so tired she just wants the blackness to cradle her. As a result, the blackness of the room presses upon her open eyes; leaving her slightly disoriented as she tries to remember what had woken her. A moment later, the hail is repeated.

Reaching up, finding the control by touch alone, she activates the intercom on the thin 'shelf' over her head. "Yes?" She asks in a voice slurred with sleep.

"Bridge here." A man's voice, Richard Malloy's, she remembers a moment later, says. "I'm sorry to wake you, but you have a subspace call from Earth."

She pushes herself off the mattress, her fatigued body resenting the motion and protesting vigorously. "What time is it?"

"0332 hours. I'm sorry, Reverend, but we have a situation up here and I have to clear the auxiliary board." She realizes he is calling her from the tactical/sensor board in the rear of the bridge, to which secondary systems are sometimes channeled and filtered during emergencies.

"All right. Thank you." The intercom goes dead and she knows the message will hold, unattended, at her terminal. She pushes the blanket off her body. "Computer; one fifth illumination please."

The request results in a brightening of the room well enough to see by without being blinding, the 'please' more a matter of conditioned politeness coupled with her own experiences with the 'Clara' program; an interactive AI which was unlikely to be miffed by brusqueness, but why take the chance?

Getting off the bed, she crosses the room on bare feet to her closet, pressing the button to open it and drawing out a robe. She normally sleeps unclothed; she is a 'tosser' and more often than not has to, while nine-tenths asleep, pull the blanket from the deck onto herself again and endure its momentary chill, but she wears nothing to bed because she detests the tightening of bedclothes waking her up as they twist themselves about her body.

As she pulls the robe on and cinches it, pulling her shoulder length chestnut hair free and spreading it out behind her, she becomes aware that the barely perceptible vibration under her bare feet, transmitted through the deck plates while the ship is at warp, is missing. "Computer, open the blast shield please."

x

Outside her portside 'window', the stars are almost stationary; the barely discernable motion from right to left telling her the ship is most likely in orbit about some body. She remembers Malcolm having told her yesterday at lunch that they were on course for the Kintaris system, a name that meant nothing to her. Long range sensors, he'd said, had indicated a strong probability that the planet was habitable, 'Mintara' class or something like that.

Since she cannot see the planet dominating the left side of her view from her forward port cabin, she knows from her talk with Mr. Mayweather that the planet is rotating 'retrograde', or 'clockwise'; rather than 'direct' or 'counter-clockwise'. The terms are a holdover from the days when the only planets man knew were in the Sol system, the majority of which rotate 'counter-clockwise'. Therefore, 'counter-clockwise' is 'right', and 'clockwise' is 'wrong'.

The terms 'direct' and 'retrograde' persist even to this day, even after man has gotten out into deep space and discovered that rotations are pretty much evenly split.

Therefore, Kintaris IV, whatever it might otherwise be, is 'wrong'.

She is not truly a space-going soul, and suspects she would get hopelessly lost if taken to Alpha Centauri and obliged to find her way home, but it was nice of Mr. Mayweather to try to explain some of these things to her. She did know, at least, that they were to arrive sometime during the night.

These thoughts flashed through her mind in the moment it takes her to sit down at her desk. With enough light to see and work by, she touches the blinking control on her monitor.

x

It is still an accepted truism that late night calls to Priests and Doctors are never good news; and one look at the grim expression on the face of the woman whose features appear on the screen have Patricia McCabe mentally preparing for the worst. "Reverend Mother McCabe?" The woman asks dubiously. Patricia realizes that, in the subdued lighting of the room, most of the illumination comes from the screen itself, and likely leaves a dim to dark frame about her barely visible face.

"Computer; one half illumination, please." She requests. When the room brightens, she addresses her caller, confirming. "This is Mother McCabe."

The woman before her is perhaps 50 to 55, with severe features and hair pulled back so tightly that she could give herself a facelift without medical aid. Her face is lined with perpetual grimness, that of someone who does not smile often. Over the woman's left shoulder, Patricia can make out a banner suspended from a vertical pole; allowing enough detail for her to piece together a familiar blue, white and yellow emblem.

"I'm Ms. Helen Marin of the United Earth Space Probe Agency." She says it as though the entire thing were a title.

"Yes?" McCabe invites, preparing for the news. 'What is UESPA calling for at this sainted hour?' She carefully keeps her concerned thought from showing upon her face.

"I am contacting you because I have, that is to say our Agency has, concerns about one of your crewmates – or 'flock' should I say?"

"Either is suitable. Which one?" Her apprehension goes up a notch. Fortunately there are plenty of them before she might actually show her feelings. Years of Liturgical and Psychiatric training have taught her that discipline, especially when dealing with bad news.

"An Ensign Elizabeth Cutler."

"What about her?" Patricia refuses to let her mind wander to the possibilities: family emergency, injury, death, some potential trag-

"I understand she is pregnant."

The non-news brings her up short, the careful mask relaxing slightly in her surprise. "Yes, she is." Patricia confirms matter-of-factly. The whole ship has known for weeks; Starfleet knows; Patricia admits that for all she knows it was major news that first week on the 'News Services' of Earth. Could this be about some problem, maybe a congenital matter that even Phlox was unaware of?

"I – we – were wondering what do you plan to do about it?"

x

The question derails Patricia for a moment. "Excuse me?" She asks. "What _I_ plan to do about it?" Was the woman implying contraceptive or family planning advice? Wasn't it a little _late_?

Patricia realizes, as these irrelevant thoughts flash through her mind, that she is still not entirely awake.

Marin frowns, the image seeming more natural to her than any pleasant expression. "You _are_ the 'Enterprise' Chaplain, are you not; posted there for Religious and Moral Guidance to that crew; part of the U.E.S.P.A.'s pilot program to assign Chaplains to all ships on long term voyages in space?"

"I am." Patricia confirms, not liking the woman's tone.

"Well then." Marin says, satisfied. "An unwed – I understand she has chosen not to marry the child's father – mother serving aboard Earth's first deep space scientific and exploration vessel, certainly its most celebrated vessel; is, you can understand clearly, completely unacceptable. It's a public scandal. Word of this pregnancy is all over the planet, and some of our constituents are simply outraged that it was allowed to happen, to say nothing of continuing unabated."

Rev. McCabe feels her mouth falling slowly open and a burst of anger allows her to close it.

x

_Now_ she recognizes this woman, by reputation if not by face. She is the one who, close to a year ago, had jumped onto the Vulcans' bandwagon about the Enterprise having allegedly 'bought' a new crewmember; Marin's 'spin' on it being that Captain Archer had bought a 'Slavegirl'.

It had worked out in Tia Anlor's favor, however, establishing her as an 'Ambassador' of her people with full 'Diplomatic Immunity', allowing her to go wherever she would, or to stay on board Enterprise with her beloved Charles Tucker.

But the matter had not been an easy one for anyone concerned. The woman had stirred up considerable trouble; and it is now clear that she, in her 'concern' for the crew and its 'reputation', in particular for the reputation of UESPA, has not learned any lesson in the intervening months.

x

"Let me get this straight: You called me at 3:30 in the morning – I don't know what your local time is – to complain that people on Earth have an _opinion_?" Outraged, so outraged she actually slips into anger, something she usually has far more control than to do so openly, she does not give the woman a chance to reply. "While I have my doubts of the general public even _caring_ about this issue, let me give you some _facts_. Miss Cutler is a twenty four year old woman of good – no, exemplary – character; who in the past few weeks since her pregnancy had been discovered, has seen me regularly; and has already reversed her decision on the subject of marriage _eight_ times. This ambivalence is only natural for a young woman unexpectedly thrown into a life altering situation.

"In the meantime, I am continuing to work with the young couple, so you may assure your 'constituents' – and I did not know a Space Probe Agency _had_ constituents – that the matter is in good hands.

"On the subject of if and when there will be a wedding; her direct supervisor is Lt. John Abrams in Life Sciences; Ensign Cein's is Security Chief Lt. Malcolm Reed, and ultimately we all answer to Captain Archer. As it is unlikely that the Captain is going to order them to stand before me, or that anyone will hold a phase pistol to the young woman's head while she recites her vows, I suggest you _leave_ this matter in our capable hands." The woman is about to try to respond, as she had several times already, but McCabe is not yet finished.

"Finally, if there is a concern about how, or how _quickly_, I am doing my job; need I remind you that while UESPA did approach my Order and others for your 'pilot program'; I do not report to you? While I answer to Captain Archer on Secular matters which concern his crew, I _report_ to Chaplain-Admiral Roth or, if need be, ultimately to Archbishop Terrance Matthews.

"Thank you for your concern about the Spiritual lives of this crew. It is duly noted and in good hands. Good night to you and may God Bless." She severs the connection.

x

Patricia sits for several minutes in the dimness, trying to force her aggravation back down, to lock it in that box it would have to reside in until she is ready to deal with it in the light of day. She has no doubt that the issue is not at an end. The officious twit had not stopped last time on what had finally ended as a solo endeavor until Admiral Forrest had come down hard upon her, enlisting the aid of her own organization in doing so. It seems clear she has not learned any lesson; and is fully skilled in making herself into a thorough pain in the ... neck.

Crossing herself, Patricia reaches out for the computer control again, deciding she might as well prepare for the next phase of the problem. Marin is not the kind of person who takes to being told off. "Computer, flag a message to Elizabeth Cutler's terminal. Ask her to contact me when her schedule permits." She is certainly not going to disturb the young woman's sleep over this. Cutler had enough on her mind without having some stranger in a panic over either her soul or her reputation.

"Ensign Elizabeth Cutler is not aboard the Enterprise." The feminine voice supplies helpfully.

"Where is she?" McCabe asks automatically; feeling like a fool when the computer gives the obvious answer her question.

"Ensign Elizabeth Cutler accompanied Lt. John Abrams and Crewwoman Tia Anlor on a Biological Survey mission at 0144 hours on board Shuttlepod Two, piloted by Ensign Travis Mayweather, to planet Kitaris IV." It says, condensing all reasonable data into a single unwieldy sentence.

'All right, a 'late night' Survey mission, at least late night to us. She'll likely be tied up for hours.' McCabe thinks, imagining how much laboratory work there would be for the young woman to perform upon her return. But she could probably judge a schedule by her S.R.T. "When is she scheduled to return?"

"There is no scheduled return time for Elizabeth Cutler. Contact with Shuttlepod Two was lost at 0153 hours when it crashed upon the surface of Kitaris IV."

x

Patricia feels every drop of blood in her body chill; and she stares at the blank screen before her, trying several times to speak before she finally forces, in a strained voice two octaves too high, "**_WHAT_**?"

The computer repeats its last two sentences, including the chilling interpolation, verbatim. It does not sound any better the second time.

Patricia falls back into her seat, a desperate mental prayer answered only with silence as her blood freezes to even colder depths. The call that had awakened her plays back unbidden in her mind as Gamma Shift Communications Officer Robert Malloy told her from the rear sensor station of 'a situation' he had to return his attention to.

Reaching out with a trembling hand, she activates the intercom beside the screen. "McCabe to the Bridge." Her attempt to speak is barely a whisper. She knows she should let them get on with their work uninterrupted, but she cannot let this go.

A moment later Malcolm Reed's face appears on the monitor as he takes the call. If he is there, doubtless the entire Alpha shift officers are at their stations. All she has to see is the strained tension in his grim visage to know the awful truth. He is looking down into the monitor/receiver on his panel. He doesn't say 'Reed here' or anything so unnecessary. For a moment, he doesn't say anything. Such is the relationship between them that the silent communication says as much as words.

"Malki," she speaks in a soft, haunted tone, letting slip her personal nickname for him on the open channel, "I just heard. The computer told me. Is there…"

He shakes his head grimly. "We don't know yet. There's a sensor block up as well as other interference." His voice barely carries, and his eyes flick upward, glancing at the rest of the bridge before him. "We're trying to punch through it, as well as extrapolating their course to look for the most likely spot to focus a search if we _should_ punch through."

"The computer said they crashed." Patricia tells him in haunted tones, wanting him to deny it; _needing_ him to deny it.

"The computer interpolates data. Catastrophic loss of control plus no telemetry equals crash. I choose to have hope." He gives her a lopsided grin, intended to be reassuring even if she can tell it is forced. She knows him far too well, for far too long. "What can I say? You're rubbing off on me." But then the reassuring expression is gone as though it had never been.

"We can't even get a reading on life signs. It's too dangerous to send the other pod down."

"Why?"

"They were _shot_ down." He tells her grimly. "Last contact we had was a 'mayday' from an altitude of 800 feet; then nothing. Telemetry reported extreme damage to the shuttle when it went out of control, then we lost contact. But Travis is our best pilot." He tells her, trying to take the sting out of his words.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Pray, _hard_, for the four of them."

"I can set up a Vigil in the Mess Hall."

"You do that." He glances up, looking at the Bridge. "I have to go. Get everything set up, I'll tell the Captain when we have a free moment. Announce it when you're ready." But then his voice goes grim. "And pray it doesn't turn into a Memorial."


	5. Words of Hate

Chapter Five

Words of Hate

Tia Anlor drags herself along the rocky riverbed, every movement, every rock and stone adding more pain to her body. She had been wounded before, several times in her years with the Muutuur, the 'Resistance' battling the Silurians, but she had not been alone. Always there were others in her Dumile to back her up. Now she is alone. The seductive thoughts of laying still, of taking a moment to rest, have to be pushed aside. She cannot stop, she cannot rest, she has to get to the pod and call for help if her friends have any hope of being saved.

Digging her fingers into the stony ground, using first one leg and then the other to propel her along, she crawls through the rocks and dirt, not looking up until, with one more reach, her hand slaps into metal.

Only then does she look up, gasping heavily through parched throat, chest heaving painfully, to see the bulk of Shuttlepod Two towering above her. "Aura, Ealyiis!" She gasps gratefully, her prayer of thanks to the eternally watchful Deity of her people. Then she looks to her right to the inclined door. Fortunately the normally 'raised' top of the door now provides a ramp, but she still has to crawl up it.

Reaching out to her right, she tries to pull herself toward it, and screams at the sharp flare of agony in the middle of her chest. Instantly her protecting left hand is wet. She looks down, seeing the flow of golden blood between her caked fingers.

Looking upward into the sky, she whispers a gasping imploration: "Qualsia, Aura, qualsia. Vas minaq ri sei nyas. Qualsia. Makui ri mrunion miscuraiu caalyuau. Xu ti tuvi vuluyni yue sas vas makui vas tuvi kir. Qualsia. (It just me is not. Please. Let me my friends save. Then to you I return will if it command you do. Please.)

She lies gasping, the pain easing all too slowly. It is only fortune that Auran blood clots more quickly than human, but that is a slim benefit indeed, as the rate is not that much faster to help her now. It will not save her. She knows all too well that this is just a mild rupture, sealable in minutes. If ever she were to completely reopen her wound, she would die where she lay.

x

Pushing this grim thought aside, pushing herself forward with her legs more than her arms, the pain in her chest so sharp she can barely breathe, she tries to fight the pain down, forcing herself up the unwieldy 'ramp', looking into the ship. Nothing has changed, not the white fire suppression powder covering every surface or the body of Lt. John Abrams laying face down on the Pod's 'ceiling'. There are no tracks in the white powder except their own, something that relieves her immensely. She is in no condition to deal with predators.

Grabbing the hinged section of the door, her hand slick with her golden blood, she gets her legs under her and braces herself, pulling and boosting herself forward with a loud cry. She looks down at herself; again the blood is flowing faster, the triple beat of her heart loud in her ears. "Aura, qualsia! Minaq u tur piwu." She gasps, begging for 'just a few minutes'.

Slowly, carefully, she pushes herself forward to the edge of the 'ramp', reaching for the first available surface, trying to ease herself through the hatch and into the pod. But her blood slick hand slips on the smooth surface and she loses her balance, falling into the pod, landing heavily on her side.

For several moments she lies there, too hurt to scream, too agonized to cry, clutching her chest and holding her breath, grimacing tightly. The pain is so intense it robs her breath, leaving her unable to move.

Only gradually, too gradually, does the pain diminish to a point where she can fight it, but she has to keep going. Turning over slowly, she looks up, realizing she has to stand if she is going to make it past the white debris, and the still body of her friend, and reach the controls normally at knee height, now over her head.

Reaching more cautiously now, she grabs a support bar, holds her breath tightly, and carefully rises to her knees, her left hand pressed to her chest, trying to staunch the flow of blood that fills the front of her uniform. The triple beat of her heart is louder in her ears as her system tries to compensate for the lost blood covering her and spread on a trail two hundred val behind her.

Instantly the pod begins to spin about her, and she clutches desperately at the bar, a wave of vertigo making her lightheaded and nauseous. She stands still, trying to control her gasping, her pounding racing heart while trying to force herself not to vomit. It seems to take forever before she forces herself under control, and the pod slows from its dizzying spin.

Carefully she releases her tight grip on the bar and takes a step forward on the powder slick surface of the pod's ceiling, stepping cautiously toward the pilot seat, past the body of her friend. She can spare no thought for him now; there would be time for grief later, for proper prayers to Aura and Sabaoth for the _Neetaa_ that is truly he.

x

Reaching the communications panel, she tries not to fall against it in her relief at having made it this far. Reaching up to the now head high controls beside the suspended seat, she turns it on, grimacing at the burst of static that assails her. That method was useless, but she had to have tried. There is, however, another alternative. Knowing from a conversation with Travis some months ago that it is designed to be easily removed, she pulls on the handles attached to either side of the panel, tugging it off, wincing silently at the sharp pain it causes her.

Inside is a vast array of circuitry. "Shar-les," she whispers feelingly, "Mona edalii tuvi mozca quaxpae tuvi li kir?" (Where are you when need you I do?)

She stares at the mass of circuitry, completely lost. Her years of training in Biology are useless here, and her months of training in the Muutuur had proven to her and her compatriots that she was completely hopeless at either Auran or Silurian electronics.

The panel sways before her eyes and she clings to the frame, holding desperately, gasping; the triple beat of her pounding heart loud as drums in her ears. She knows that, if she falls now, she will never get up again.

She knows, however; that even if they are still being jammed, some signal must still be going out, even if she cannot control it. If she can just interrupt or change the output of the right circuit, she can send a signal through the interference, even if only a change in static. But which one; and how? "Li u _Glisnaq_ eda, zu Weljanno nyasi." she mutters, frustrated by the fact that she is a doctor, not an engineer.

But then she remembers a piece of Earth wisdom from her friend Liz. 'When all else fails, try everything.' At the time she had not understood what it meant; now she thinks she does.

x

Taking the short end of the panel, she inserts it into the 'top' of the opening and slowly drags the metal edge along the circuits. She is 'rewarded' by a sharp buzzing over the static emanating from the speakers, and the sparking of circuits within the recess, and so she slowly does it again, and then again. A moment later she does it three times somewhat faster, then three times more slowly, pausing for a moment and then repeating the triple pattern.

She cannot tell if anything is happening; if a signal is, in fact, being sent out, but it is the only option she has. Fighting off as best she can the wave of nauseous dizziness that assails her, she keeps working, hoping she is sending a signal to Enterprise - and not to the soldiers who had shot her!

xxx

Travis and Liz are brought to another cell in the middle of a long tunnel, a stone room behind a steel door, a small opening of which provides the only light from the outer hall. The door is opened but Travis is held back by three of the six soldiers as two of them force Liz against the wall opposite the door, holding her there. "What are you doing?" Travis demands as Liz tries to struggle.

The Squad Leader, taking his rifle from his back, faces Liz. "No! Let go, you _Bas_-." With brutal force rams the butt deep into her abdomen. Liz doubles over with a cry of sheer agony as Travis' furious cries echo down the close walls of the tunnel. The soldiers holding her pull her upright against the stone wall as the Squad Leader slams his rifle again into her stomach.

"_God Damn You, You Son of a Bitch_! I told you she's _pregnant_! God, leave her _alone_!"

Liz cannot draw a breath when the 'Squad Leader' slams his rifle into her a third time with such merciless force that Liz wants to shriek, certain something within her has ruptured! The pain is so horrendous she cannot breathe. The Squad Leader then signals the three soldiers holding Travis. As he tries to fight them, they drag him to the door of the cell and throw him in. Rolling to a stop on the stone floor, he comes up on one knee facing the door as the 'Squad Leader' draws back his rifle and, over Travis' enraged shout which echoes through the room and tunnel, slams the deadly weapon low into Liz's stomach with terrible force.

She doubles over, gagging loudly, a horrible retching sound worse than any scream, and she is thrown into the room as Travis, unable to reach out for her, barely gets in the way in time to block her body with his own, both of them falling to the stone floor, Travis trying to protect her as they land hard. The door is slammed shut with a ring of heavy metal, cutting off most of the light. Unexpectedly, the UT is tossed into the room with them.

Liz lies on top of Travis, gasping erratically, unable to regain a rhythm. The room is black save for the thin beam of light coming in from a six inch grill in the metal door. She lays atop him, unable to breathe. Looking up into her face in the near darkness, Travis is horrified. Her mouth is open, eyes wide in pain and terror, but she is utterly silent, her chest working desperately to draw air, but she cannot.

She is suffocating on top of him.

x

"Liz." He tries to call to her as she lies on him. "Easy. Try to breathe. In … out … in … out …Try to control it. In … out … in …" Her panic grows, her eyes alight with terror as she struggles, unable to force herself to draw a breath. "Liz, try to relax. In … out … in … out …You have to control it! In … out … in … out …"

She tries to follow the rhythm he sets up, and forces herself to drag in a breath, let it out again, and the rhythm is violently reestablished as she gasps a deep lungful of air, letting it out and breathing hard again, her lungs working like bellows for several seconds before she can breathe at his direction, and the utter terror fades from her eyes as she lays upon him, panting.

It is many moments before she can breathe normally, now able only to cry. "My baby!" She sobs onto his chest, a more poignant terror than suffocation robbing her of everything but one overwhelming thought. "My baby!"

"I know, honey. God, I know."

She moves and falls off his body, rolling onto her side, curling into a fetal position, sobbing brokenly. "My baby. My baby!"

"Liz." He sits up, trying to work his way around her body, trying to get a look at her in the dim light. He becomes aware of a strong scent of something resembling honeysuckle pervading the cell; not entirely unpleasant but powerful, but pushes the thought aside as meaningless.

The punches have blackened Liz's face with horribly mottled bruising, blood flows from her nose, mouth, and a gash across her forehead and another on her left cheek, but it is the damage he cannot see that is more frightening. The damage to her swelling face only hints at the marks that surely cover the rest of her body. She is sobbing, great body wracking sobs that are more frightening than anything he could imagine. "Try to -."

"They _hurt_ my _baby_!" She cries to him in terrible fear. "_They hurt my baby_!" She sobs, unable to think of anything else.

"When did they capture you?" A feminine voice from the darkness surprises them. Travis looks to the far corner, just barely able to make out the dark outline of someone seated on the floor in the corner.

x

Alah Korvakai had recoiled apprehensively when the steel door opened. Weeks of torture had been an excellent teacher of caution and mistrust, so she had kept silent and watched from the black far left corner as two new prisoners had been thrown into her cell. She had not understood at first what the man was yelling so furiously while still in the corridor, but her view into that corridor showed he had ample and all too familiar cause.

She'd watched apprehensively, mistrust one of her very few companions since the death of the last member of her squad. The others were now pain and hunger, and she'd recently been introduced to hopelessness as her captivity and the interrogations both dragged on.

She did not know how long she had been here. The days of blackness cut by one unchanging light are mind-numbingly empty, broken only by beatings and interrogations, far less frequently by food or drink. She'd slept well only once in the beginning, to be awakened to more abuse. Now she sleeps lightly indeed, when she dares to at all.

Time means nothing in the black darkness broken only by a shaft of dim light from the single bulb outside the door as it slices through the small grill in the steel door, but her eyes have long since adjusted to the dark, allowing her to see perfectly what little there was to see in her dirt covered stone cell. She is perpetually too cold, wearing only the uniform she had been captured in so many weeks ago. Her last 'shower' had been an agonizing drenching by a blast of scalding water directed onto her from the doorway.

She'd tried to count the days by how long it took for each successive series of wounds to heal, but her initial injuries were not yet healed and as the interval between the small and stale meals she received drew longer, what healing her body could manage slowed as well, and even that measurement was denied to her.

Her green one piece camouflage uniform, once a perfect fit, hangs loose about her emaciated body, and the cramps in her stomach have gone on for so long that they no longer mean anything to her. She wondered occasionally if her shrunken stomach could even hold a meal now.

So when the two new prisoners are thrown into her cell, she watches them cautiously, apprehensively. Hands bound behind her, so starved she can barely stand up, she cannot protect herself. What new pain will these two strangers inflict upon her as she lies helpless? What toll of abuse will be taken upon her by these two?

x

She did note however, and was impressed by, the man's effort to break the fall of his companion, unsuccessful though it was. Her own imprisonment had resulted in a bruised and swollen face when she'd struck the far stone wall – no one had moved to protect her from the collision.

Now she watches distrustfully as the man kneels beside the woman, his words now clear, hers incomprehensible in her fearful sobbing, but it does encourage Alah. Certainly she cannot stay hidden for long in the stone cell, so she has to take a chance. The man, at least, seems capable of compassion – at least to his fellow.

It has been a long time, a very long time, since she has seen or experienced compassion.

"When did they take you?"

x

"About an hour ago, give or take." Travis answers. Liz is unable to stop crying, weeping as much in fear as pain; fear for her child. He realizes whoever is in the cell with them can likely see them far better than he can her.

"I don't know how long I've been here, maybe for over a xinyax." The UT fails to render the unknown time. The figure starts to move, trying to get her legs up under her. Travis watches, barely able to distinguish anything about her in the darkness, as she works her way up and knee-walks closer until she is with them and can come down, sitting on her legs. Her arms, like theirs, are tied tightly behind her back. She catches his eye, though he can barely see her face in the dim light through the grill in the door. It is not directed at her, so she is still very much in the shadows. Clearly, if she has been here as look as she looks to be, she can see better than they can. "They only let me loose to eat;" she answers the question in his eyes, "when they _let_ me eat." She does not know when the last time that was; at least two interrogations and a scorching hosing ago.

Now that she is close, and his eyes have time to adjust to the darkness, he can see her by the pitiful light from the door grill. Kneeling, she is of a height with him, painfully thin, hair long and of indeterminate color in the darkness. Her face is covered by dark spots he is sure are not dirt, and streaks that are even darker.

He now recognizes the source of the powerful honeysuckle 'aroma' he'd smelled earlier, and gives thanks that she is not human.

"Who are you?" She asks in a voice parched by long thirst. "You don't look Drailen, and _you're_ certainly not Manaxian. Not with flesh that color."

Travis half smiles, glad to meet _someone_ here who would take the obvious for what it was. "Ensign Travis Mayweather, this is Ensign Elizabeth Cutler. We're from the starship Enterprise, from Earth."

"Corporal Alah Korvakai, 703rd Battalion. We were on a reconnaissance mission when we were captured forty two glasks from here." The UT could not render the distance, and to Travis it meant nothing anyhow. He sees that Liz has recovered enough of her composure to take notice of her surroundings.

"You --?" He had been about to ask if she was 'okay', but refrained from so monumentally asinine a question.

"I'm _sick_." She says in a slurred whisper through broken and swollen lips, not looking up from the ground, unable to straighten from the fetal position she'd taken. "Next time, _you_ provide the object lesson!"

"Gladly. How's…" She shook her head.

"Don'know!" She gasps. "I – I'm sorry. I - ." She rolls away from them as quickly as she can before starting to retch. Travis fights not to withdraw from behind her, offering hopeless support until finally her protesting stomach ceases its rebellion and she turns over again, humiliated. "I'm sorry." She gasps, more to their 'hostess'. Corporal Korvakai shakes her head, her matted and kinky hair waving like a moldering curtain.

"They wanted you to convince him to talk." Her tone, more than anything else, says to them how familiar she is with the technique. Liz just nods, recognizing a fellow sufferer. "There were six of us. They haven't killed me, mostly I think because they want to use me again if they capture any more of us." She fixes Liz with a look both sad and dooming. "If they decide torture isn't working, they'll start the next phase with rape."

They can both see the color drain from Cutler's face even in the dim light.

x

With great care Korvakai gets to her feet and goes behind Liz, using her boots to move small piles of debris and dirt about, facing away from them. As she does, Travis; whose eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to make out some details, sees the condition of the woman's right hand. When she finishes her task, Korvakai returns to kneel beside her 'guests'. Starved and dehydrated, the effort is more strenuous than she'd expected, and she slumps down upon her knees, tired and dizzy.

"Your hand…" Travis hesitates, not wanting to finish, but the words were already out. Their 'hostess' nods regretfully.

"A couple of weeks ago, to convince Sergeant Quovik to give up our 'secrets', they tied my hand to a block and used a rifle butt on my fingers and hand up to my wrist. Then they tied me up again and let the bones 'heal' as they would. I guess I'm 'lucky'; I haven't felt a thing since."

"What the hell is going on here?" Travis tries to keep it one notch below a demand, but it is hard.

"You really don't know."

"Not a damned _thing_."

She shakes her head sadly, taking a deep breath, preparing to unravel a story too old to be retold. "We're in one of the staging areas for the Drail, on the outer perimeter of one of their shelters. This complex is huge – I think there must be three or four thousand Drailens here. Originally it, like most, was an emergency shelter built during the colonization of this world, a place to retreat to should climate on the surface become too hazardous. It's now the only sort of area these people, and we, use." She says sadly, recalling a time of hope and ambition now long abandoned.

"Salacki ago," the UT rendered 'years' belatedly, "Manaxia and Drail, two of the most powerful nations on our home world Bethesna, went to war; and here the colonies dug in and joined in the conflict. Bethesna has been fighting all this time, and so have we here. At last count, there were eleven 'colony caverns', four Drailen and seven Manaxian, scattered all over this continent – all at war." She sighed sadly. "Far too often, open hostility breaks out on the surface."

"But why did they think _we_ were involved?" Liz asks as well as she can. "They could _see_ we're not of your race."

"We've been fighting so long; I think some of us are unable to break out of it. They see Manaxians everywhere."

"They beat her to get me to confess." Travis says bitterly. "I'd have even done it if I knew what to confess _to_. I tried to get them to stop. I told them everything about us – the truth – told them she was pregnant, but that didn't matter to them."

Alah is rocked, looking at Liz, her slightly gray face ashen even in the dim light. "You're _pregnant_?" Her voice is barely a breath, laden with horror. Liz nods. They can see the color drain from the woman's face. "I am so _sorry_."

"What do you mean?" Liz demands.

Massively embarrassed that the people out in the complex are actually from her own planet, Alah reluctantly explains, her voice rasping from thirst and quieted by shame. "There are many who would see this war ended by assuring there are no more generations of Manaxians. I heard them boast in monitored communications with another Drailen colony of one civilian who was pregnant when she was captured in a raid upon another Manaxian colony cavern. They kept her alive only long enough to assure that the fetus was dead, and that she knew it to be dead, before they killed her."

They stared at her, horrified.

"I'm so very sorry. If they start interrogating you again, they will make sure there are no more Manaxians born."


	6. Words of Love

Chapter Six

Words of Love

Commander Trip Tucker tries to keep from swearing as he pours over the exposed circuits before him. The wall panel that normally hid the systems is at his feet, leaning against the bulkhead, and he is trying to work on an idea for punching through the interference between them and the lost Shuttle.

He had tried numerous methods, some of which went from inspired to quietly desperate, all uniformly without success. The interference field on the planet had been enhanced by unknown years of refinement and did not yield. All his efforts having failed, he now tried a different approach, something he would never have sanctioned previously.

Malcolm Reed had had a similar idea months ago, when the ship had been attacked by an unknown, hostile vessel. He'd wanted to slam nearly the entire output of one of the warp field generators into the newly installed phase cannon. Tucker had had a fit when he'd heard; now he was willing to try something similar.

If he could boost the systems, he would be able to use the output from the impulse engines to enhance the sensors, maybe solving with brute force what finesse could not.

He had been trying various methods of punching through, working around or synchronizing with, the field, all of which had failed. Whatever refinements had gone into the shielding technology on this planet, it was extremely sophisticated, and every method he had come up with was defeated.

Adding to his mounting frustration was the horrible awareness of the possible danger his shipmates were in. And he is determined not to be hypocritical. Yes, he is concerned about Travis, and Liz Cutler, and John Abrams. Yes, he'd love to see all of them safe and sound. But he can not deny his real focus, the thought that had been tearing at him for hours, ever since the 'Yellow Alert' had brought him instantly out of less than two hours sleep.

_Tia_ is down there!

It is one thing to know that, on a dangerous situation, she probably has more survival skills than any of the others; even more so than Malcolm, considering how handily she'd defeated him some months ago. It is far worse to know that she is down there, facing unknown peril, and he is circling thousands of miles over her head, completely safe and utterly unable to do anything.

"Commander?" The voice of his Second calls from behind him.

"Yeah, Billy?" It is still an hour before Alpha Shift, the man should be at breakfast; at least so he'd thought.

"Get out."

x

The two words are enough to freeze Tucker. He is not just surprised, he is utterly astonished. 'Get out', the man had said? 'Get out?'

He turns around, amazement overwhelming any flare of anger, even more greatly staggered to find the entire Engineering crew arrayed behind him. The _entire_ crew – Alpha, Beta and Gamma shifts. He fixes his eyes upon Billy, front and center, budding outrage coloring his astonishment.

"Did you just say -?"

"Sir, your entire crew is here, and we're going to stay until we come up with a solution to this problem; but you have been on your feet since Alpha last, and since I saw you at movie night last night with Miss Anlor I _know_ you did not get to your bunk until after oh-zero-hundred. You've probably only had a nap before the 'Yellow'. We all know that you're worried about her and the others, but Reverend McCabe has set up a Vigil in the Mess Hall and if you can't sleep then that's a better place for you. At any rate, at least have some breakfast."

"You're throwing me out?" He asks incredulously, still unable to believe him.

"Look at how many Lt. Commanders you've got, how many Lieutenants, Ensigns even and three full crews. Collectively we outrank you." Billy says with a smile.

"It doesn't work that way." Even as Trip protests, he is unable to deny being warmed by this display of 'belligerent' friendship.

"In that case," Lt. Mary Sherman, standing next to Billy, says: "remember that I'm Gamma Shift Duty Officer. Right now _I'm_ in charge. You don't come on duty for an hour, and frankly, you're in my way;" the redheaded woman insists with a smile that says far more than her words. "So, Commander, with all _due respect_ – Beat it."

"This is mutiny, 'mister'."

"Yes, Sir;" she agrees; "it is."

Trip shakes his head, unable to resist a rueful smile of his own. "I love you guys."

"We love you too. Get some rest. We'll call you if we need you."

He held up a cautioning finger. "You'd better."

He passes through the crowd of his colleagues, seeing reflected in each of their eyes his own concern for his beloved. He knows, as he had always been sure, that he could not ask for better friends.

xxx

In the Enterprise's Mess Hall the mood of the crew is somber. It is 0730, change of shift, Gamma to Alpha, dinners and breakfasts; but the word of lost colleagues has spread throughout the ship and no one has much of an appetite. Patricia McCabe has set up a table in the rear corner of the room, a white cloth over one of the round tables, and upon it a white Bible and red Book of Common Prayer, all very discrete and unassuming. She has made herself available for anyone who wants to come to her, but has not 'intruded' upon the routine of the ship or the room.

Several of the crew are already present, quiet over their meals. They know full well why she is there, but few look at her and no one approaches. It is as if they want to come to her and have no idea what to say, so they do not move.

McCabe hardly minds. She is well aware of the uncertainty; she had encountered it thousands of times in her career, and concentrates upon being welcoming and available for anyone who wants to approach.

It is no surprise to her that the first to do so, to cross the room as soon as she enters the Hall, is Ensign Dina Samuels. She comes directly to the back of the Hall, to McCabe's table. "May I …"

"Sit down, child." Patricia invites.

When Dina sits opposite her, the first thing she wants to know is; "Have you heard anything?" Patricia shakes her head. "We heard about it while we were setting up the Bio Lab; Sam Harris, Sarah Dutton and I. The usual routine; some of us go down, others prepare the lab, a rotating detail unless one of our specialties is called for and breaks the pattern a bit. The lab's always ready anyway, but we do the necessary detail work; the team lets us know before they start back if there is anything unusual we should prepare for. Pretty routine, we're ready when they get back, all very routine, all … very routine …"

Patricia waits, letting her talk herself out, not pushing. Finally Dina's voice drops away, and she can say in hushed tones what she is really thinking. "We're _scared_."

"I know, child."

"I … you've been with me a lot since … since the Capellans. I don't have to … I mean, you've seen me at my worst. I don't have to _fake_ anything; don't have to look strong or confident or..." She gives up, unable to think of anything. "I'm scared."

"I know, child."

"The others, Sam and Sarah, they wanted to come; they _will_ come, but …"

"Everybody handles things in their own way. I'm here for anyone who wants to come to me."

"Do you believe they're all right?"

Patricia McCabe wants with all her heart to say 'yes', to give assurances to her friend, but she can not be so cruel. "I don't know, child. I am praying that they are, but I don't have any answers."

"Can I pray with you?" Dina tries not to allow her fear to make it a plea. Patricia takes her hand, trying to be comforting.

"Of course."

Dina opens her mouth to speak first, so Patricia does not. Dina tries again, and then again, but nothing comes out. "I can't think of any prayers. I'm too upset."

Patricia closes her hand reassuringly about the other woman's. "Child, our Religion is over twenty one hundred years old, and I sometimes have this mental picture of God saying: 'if I have to listen to one more formal or prepared prayer I'm going to scream'." Despite her distress, Dina laughs, and is surprised she can, feeling better for it. "Don't worry about the words. Just say what's in your heart. That's what a real prayer is."

"I want them back safe! That's all I want. That's all the prayer I can think of."

Patricia holds her hand more firmly. "That's all the prayer you need."

x

McCabe's eyes flick up to see Ensign Jim Cein and Trip Tucker approaching the table. She'd anticipated their arrival from the moment she'd set up; and their arrival together brings to mind of the ancient adage 'Misery shared is misery halved'.

She is about to stand up to greet them when the most horrendous sound, much like Trip Tucker had once described to her as 'a bag full of cats', blares through every speaker on the ship, drowning out all noise, all thought. A moment later, Malcolm Reed's voice fills every crevice on the ship. "Omega One – All Down. Repeat: Omega One – All Down. This is not a drill."

The pair turns and bolts for the door as three other Security Officers leap to their feet and all charge to the exit; Trip Tucker actually beating them all.

"What's happening?" She exclaims. Cein looks back over his shoulder.

"All Security forces to the transporter, armed for combat!" He is gone, leaving the dreadful caterwauling in his wake.


	7. Sides of Tragedy

Chapter Seven

Sides of Tragedy

Tia continues dragging the edge of the panel over the exposed circuits, trying to fight the waves of dizziness that assail her more and more frequently, tearing her balance from her, blurring her vision even worse than the perspiration pouring past her eyes. She can barely stay on her feet, hearing the distorted peaks in the static coming from the speakers before her, the rhythm of three slow scrapes, three fast and three slow, praying to Aura that someone will see hear the pattern in them and investigate; praying she is transmitting anything at all.

Sweat pouring down her face, her hair and uniform plastered to her, her body trembling and chilled from the increasing cold she knows has nothing to do with the temperature, she continues working.

The pain in her chest is fading to a dull ache, even against the loud triple beat of her pounding heart, and her breath is coming in sharper gasps, none of which is good. She knows the fading of pain from the gunshot wound is the worst sign of all; that the blood covering the front of her uniform means that much less in her, but she has to keep going. As long as there is a chance that someone can hear her, she has to —

A scraping behind her makes her look over her shoulder, the pain in her chest flaring with renewed fire as she turns quickly, fear chilling her as she sees a leg come through the door. The next thing that does is a large rifle.

She drops the panel and it lands with a loud clatter as she starts to lunge for the weapons locker. Her boot slips on the slick white powder and she falls with an agonized scream which reverberates in the small pod as the soldier entering the Pod turns to her, aiming his rifle!

xx

"But we're _not_ Manaxians, damn it. Doesn't anyone beside you recognize that?"

"If they do, they don't care." Corporal Alah Korvakai tells Travis sadly. "This war has gone on so long on Bethesna, sides are taken there and here, and anyone who is not a Drailen is a Manaxian or an enemy spy or mercenary."

"What about mercenaries?"

"The Drailen use them, we use them; there are always people willing to fight; some for a cause, most for money. Sometimes we both wind up using the same race."

"We're not mercenaries." Liz exclaims through broken lips. The blood and bruises on her face only give hints of the damage to her body that they do not see. "I'm a scientist, a Biologist; from _Earth_, not Quonos. I'm going to be a _Mother_, and those fucking _Bastards_ hurt my _Baby_!"

"What the _hell_ are you fighting over anyway?" Travis demands, Liz's outburst having sapped the last of his patience.

Korvakai shakes her head. "Nothing. That's the tragedy. We're fighting over nothing."

"_Nothing_?" He demands, incredulous. They _can't_ be fighting over nothing. There has to be _something_!

"Land. On Bethesna there is disputed territory claimed by both sides. Occupation of that land, several tremendous islands with arable surfaces large enough to feed millions, led to the fighting at home."

"And here?"

"Sides."

"**_Sides_**?" He yells, incredulity giving way to outrage.

"Manaxian colonists and Drailen colonists taking sides in the war at home."

Travis stares at her in cataclysmic outrage, unable to restrain his temper any longer. "Are you telling me that with an entire freaking _planet_ at your disposal, you people are fighting over land you'll never need, see nor use; because someone _else_ a trillion miles away is fighting over it?"

Alah nods regretfully. "Sucks, doesn't it?"

Liz stares up from where she lies on her side on the ground, her fury mounting with every word. "_Sucks_? _Sucks_? We're shot down, our friends are _killed_, one of them _murdered_ right before our eyes; we're interrogated, they beat the _Hell_ out of me and I may lose my _baby_ and you say it _sucks_?"

"I'm sorry."

"If I could get up; I'd _show_ you 'sucks'!"

xx

"_SHAR-LES_!" Tia Anlor cries in rapturous relief from where she lies as the Chief Engineer follows the Security Guard through the hatch even as the other lowers his weapon, seeing only his shipmates aboard. Trip Tucker pushes past the man even as Captain Jonathan Archer and Dr. Phlox follow them into the confines of the ship. Phlox hurries forward to join his patient.

As Trip clutches her hands, the words they exchange being meaningless to him, Phlox runs his molecular scanner over the young woman's body, the blue light of it illuminating her. A fast scan is all he needs; the Auran's condition is quite obvious. He glances briefly at the other body, but the white powder covering it is not on the metal John Abrams lies upon. Clearly Abrams has not moved for hours, and had long been beyond the Denobulan's help. Tia, however, is a different matter. "I'm going to have to get her to Sick Bay immediately. She needs far more help than I can give her here."

Tia, ever since realizing she is safe, is trembling uncontrollably, her body shaking violently. She feels colder than ever, thoroughly wet within her uniform, and the Pod is spinning worse than when they'd crashed.

"Shot me, they did." She gasps, looking past Phlox to Trip, knowing she has to give him what she knows quickly. She sees his distress mount at her words, but there is nothing that can be done. "Soldiers … they were. Took Liz … and Travis … away." She pants breathlessly. "Many soldiers!" The pod spins wildly, nausea she can no longer fight welling up in her. "Fol … low … my … blood…" The pod crashes again, this time painlessly, and the universe goes out.

x

Trip Tucker has just released his beloved a moment before the beam of the matter transporter takes her and Phlox, the spot they'd occupied a moment before empty now. It is an extraordinary action, but only one of many in this hour. He stands up, exiting the Pod even before Archer and the guard. Outside, three other guards have established a wide perimeter, while Malcolm Reed and four others form an inner ring about the crashed Pod.

It had taken several applications of the transporter to beam down this many personnel, but when the ship had received the odd signal from the surface, allowing them to establish the location of the shuttle even over the pervading energies blocking sensors and other readings, the officers of Enterprise had been ready to move.

It had been clear that Shuttlepod One would be too slow to reach the surface, detectable as it was during its entire approach. The first wave of guards on station at the transporter had landed as soon as a location was determined, even before Archer, Reed and Tucker had left the bridge.

Outside, the two teams have already established the line of blood, Security Officer Jim Cein virtually standing on it. As soon as Captain Archer is out of the debris that had once been Shuttlepod Two, he signals to Reed and the entire detachment moves off, following the line of blood along the nearly dry riverbank.

They reach the point where the blood trail began a little less than two hundred meters away; and to anyone who can read the signs in the ground, the horrible tale is told with merciless clarity.

Furthermore, no effort had been made to hide or disguise the incoming or outgoing paths taken by the soldiers or their two remaining captives, and onto that trail the Enterprise crew sets themselves with deadly resolve.

xxx

Following their eyes as well as tricorder readings, the party has no trouble holding the trail along the river and up the left bank. The disguised metal trap door in no way resembles native bedrock to the tricorder. This close to it; their sensors cannot be prevented from finding the tunnel. In fact, Reed theorizes they are under, or within, the jamming shield and therefore not affected by it. "I have them;" Reed reports, extending his tricorder out toward the southwest, "two hundred seventy eight meters in that direction; one hundred nine below the surface."

"Can we get down there and get them out?" Archer asks tersely. Reed shakes his head.

"I'd pit my people against any even remotely equivalent force, but readings indicate there are _thousands_ of life signs under the ground. The area stretches more than two kilometers in every direction."

"We could beam in." Tucker suggests. Archer shakes his head.

"The transporter can handle only three at a time. It'll take four transports to move ten men in, and get twelve back to the ship."

"The first transports will be crucial." Reed says. "I recommend myself and two guards directly to their coordinates. If we can, we'll secure them and get right back out to the ship. If that doesn't work, then you lot can move in in force." Archer considers it for a moment; then nods sharply.

"Request permission to be in the first team." Cein breaks in.

Archer shakes his head. "No, Ensign, not yet. This is going to be a fast strike; hopefully in and out. Considering Miss Anlor's condition, we can't be sure of what we'll find down there. If Reed and the others can get her out, you'll be on the first group back to the Enterprise."

Cein wants to protest, but does not. If what he'd heard of Anlor's condition was any indication of what had happened to Liz, he would teach these 'soldiers' just what war was all about! But until then, he has to recognize Archer is giving him all he can. This operation needs fast, coordinated workmanship; not someone who might be distracted, if even for an instant.

In the moment it had taken for this exchange, Reed selected his men. He opens his communicator. This, or any communication, is a risk that cannot be avoided. "Enterprise, read tricorder upload. Three transports to coordinates." He snaps the antenna grid closed and closes the tricorder. Hopefully the signals have been brief enough.

Reed and his men stand back to back in a triangular formation, drop to their right knees in practiced unison; raise their phase rifles and the transporter takes their bodies in a blaze of scintillating light.


	8. Rescue

Chapter Eight

Rescue

In the underground cell, the metal door slams open and four soldiers burst in. One of them grabs Corporal Korvakai, yanks her to her feet and spins her about, slamming her bodily into the stone wall. She crashes hard, unable to save herself, and falls heavily to the ground. The one they'd termed 'Squad Leader', the one who had beaten Liz, grabs her by her short brown hair, dragging her to her feet as she screams in pain. Travis is on his feet, but before he can defend himself or Liz one of the soldiers slams the butt of his rifle into his head and he goes down, stunned. The Squad Leader rams the barrel of his rifle into Liz's stomach, and before she can double over he reverses his grip, bringing the rifle butt up hard into her face. Liz is hit with such force she is knocked upward, back off her feet, slamming hard to the stone floor as a quick increase and dimming of light fills the chamber and the fourth soldier goes down hard from a phase bolt in the center of his chest!

Three more bolts from phase rifles sound as one, and a moment later the only ones standing are Reed and his team.

The two guards take up positions at the far corners of the room near the door, training their phase rifles out the only visible entrance, covering the visible length of tunnel as Reed helps Liz, then Travis, to their feet. He tries not to let his reaction to the blood flowing down Liz's face show on his own. Travis smiles grimly. "Took you long enough."

"You're welcome."

"Untie me!" Reed is more surprised at the ring of imperious command in Elizabeth Cutler's deadly voice than at the layers of blood and bruises on her face. He is about to answer, but Travis shakes his head slightly and he forbears calling her on her tone. Liz turns around expectantly, looking back over her shoulder with an expression of even greater demand.

It does not take more than a few moments for the surprised Lieutenant to free her, and when she turns around again, massaging her arms vigorously, she looks up at him with an expression as terrible as death itself.

"We should go; now." Reed tells them.

"Not yet." Both Ensigns answer him in unison, but it is a chilling chorus. Travis is looking at the woman who lies, stunned and unmoving, against the far wall. Elizabeth's voice, and her eyes, hold something more chilling, more terrible.

Unwilling to look into those eyes any longer, Reed turns his attention to freeing Travis, and then together they start untying the barely conscious woman. They barely begin when the air is split by a blood curdling shriek.

All four men turn in time to see Elizabeth Cutler bring the unconscious 'Squad Leader's' rifle butt down into his face!

x

So shocked are they that she has time to raise it high and bring it down again with the full strength of her body. "Oh my God." Reed whispers, appalled by her brutality against an unconscious foe, seeing what is left of the man's face.

Travis gets up to rush to his friend as she brings the rifle down a third time with all her maddened strength. "Liz. Liz, stop!"

Cutler whirls and he draws up short as she turns the rifle and trains it on _him_, the barrel pointed into his face. The aperture is barely six inches away, pointed right between his eyes as he stares incredulously at her. It is the second time he has looked down this barrel; the first was when it was being wielded by the man at his feet. This time it is far worse. This time he is actually afraid.

He stares, frozen, less from the incredible threat as from the look of maniacal fury in her eyes. Layers of blood and bruises cover her swollen face, turning it into an unrecognizable mask of hate. The guarding men hold their positions near the door for fear of causing Liz to fire and Travis stares down the length of the rifle, seeing his own death in his friend's wild eyes.

"He hurt my _baby_!"

In that timeless instant when the universe freezes, he watches her finger tighten on the trigger.

x

Before he can duck, taking a desperate chance in sudden movement, Liz suddenly turns away, bringing the rifle from his face to the head of the unconscious, bleeding soldier. She screams; a shriek of primal rage as she squeezes the trigger.

A phase beam slams into her chest and she is knocked backward off her feet, the rifle clattering against the far stone wall as she falls, insensate, to the ground.

Travis turns, astounded, seeing Malcolm kneeling beside the woman he had been about to untie, his phase rifle pointed at the spot where Liz had stood. He is still, equally stunned.

xxx

"Captain's Log; supplemental. We have successfully rescued the crew of Shuttlepod Two, but not without suffering a casualty. Lieutenant John Abrams, Chief of Life Sciences Division, has died in the line of duty. His body has been recovered, and a Memorial Service has been scheduled for 1500 hours tomorrow.

"Ensign Elizabeth Cutler and Crewwoman Tia Anlor both suffered extensive injuries due to their encounters with Drailen soldiers, and are being treated in Sick Bay. We have also taken aboard Corporal Alah Korvakai of the Manaxian Armed Forces, who will be returned to her Unit. Her injuries are also severe.

"I am making preparations to retrieve the instruments and equipment confiscated from our team and presently in the hands of Drailen forces.

"Shuttlepod Two is a total loss and I have ordered it stripped of all its components while under guard. It will then be destroyed by phase cannon and photon torpedo barrage. There is to be nothing left of our technology to fall into the hands of either the Drailens or the Manaxians."

Turning the recording off, Archer leaves his Ready Room, heading again for Sick Bay. This will be his third visit.

xxx

Lieutenant Hoshi Sato enters the Sick Bay, finding her two best friends lying side by side on two biobeds, Liz on her right. On either side of the beds are, in no way a surprise, Trip Tucker and Jim Cein. There is room between the beds, so that is where she steps, looking down at the two women. "How do you feel?" she asks Liz, standing close enough so Cutler does not have to raise her head. Liz stares up at the ceiling, her expression dismal, barely moving her eyes after the first flicker as Hoshi came into the woman's field of vision. Her face is swollen and covered in dark bruises, both eyes blackened. Several cuts have been treated and covered with white gauze, leaving her face a mask of pain. She wears a blue medical smock, and Hoshi can see the trail of bruises extend under the material.

She had been treated by her colleague Dina Samuels, acting Nurse for the shift, who is now in consultation with Phlox on the other side of the Sick Bay. There was not a lot that could be done when the focus had initially been on Tia's surgery. After the woman had come out to examine Liz, to determine that she was not in any immediate danger of death while Sam Harris, also from Life Sciences, had continued assisting Phlox, she had treated her more immediate injuries before having to return to her more pressing duty.

"I feel like shit." Liz finally answers her friend's question. Jim takes her hands in his, trying to be consoling, but it is not easy. Liz does not seem to want any of it. "Did they tell you what happened down there?"

"Not much."

Liz continues to explore the ceiling. "Well, I don't want to talk about it."

Her tone is definite enough that Hoshi does not press it, meeting Jim's eyes. From the look he gives her, he had not had much more luck getting through in the time he'd had since she got done being treated by Dina. The Denobulan doctor had been tied up in surgery since before the rescue team had returned.

x

Hoshi turns to her golden friend, noting the intravenous tubes dripping golden blood from a reservoir beside Trip into her right arm. She knew that Phlox had been accumulating a supply of pure blood on a monthly basis over the past eleven months, preserving it for need. She hoped there would be enough.

Tia looks up at her vaguely, unable to focus. Hoshi turns her attention to Trip, who still holds Tia's hand.

"She's still a bit out of it; the Doc wants her to sleep. He gave her a sedative – but of course she's fighting it."

"At least while you're here." She chides her friend with a soft, knowing smile.

"Li ceeri eda." Tia protests distantly, insisting in her almost musical language to her friend that 'I here am.' Her words are slowed, almost sung, indistinct as she fights to stay awake.

"Sure you are, honey." Trip agrees, patting her cheek lightly. "How are you feeling?"

"Li evara eda." She insists, but her effort to get up is blocked by Trip's hands on her shoulders.

"Forget it." He tells her definitely. "You may _feel_ fine because you're pumped full of whatever the Doc gave you, but you're going to be on your back here for about a week, so just get used to it." Tia looks up at Trip, smiling at the thought, but the smile is definitely lopsided.

"Tuvi ri seelna nule juis mrunion teala ti lurin." She whispers vaguely, musically.

Trip looks at Hoshi inquiringly, having understood only a few of the words; though not enough to know what her slowed words mean. He finds her grinning at him.

"'You me always seem on my back to want'." She translates, and Trip wishes she had just gone to sleep and not said anything at all. Trying to show some mercy, Hoshi belatedly pretends not to have heard anything.

"I just wanted to come down to see how you two were," She says, taking in both women, then glances at Tia, "and to compliment you on that signal – though it nearly blew my ear off at first."

Tia looks up at Hoshi with an expression that was both self-satisfied and bleary, though her smile is considerably more out of line. "Masilvanu Li kiru. Repus kiru Shar-les ri leggot po litraq Li quiu. Veer omeny, veer tuburol, veer omeny; 'Caalyuau mrunioni Neetai'."

Hoshi sees Trip's lost expression.

"'Remembered I did. Code did Charles me teach from movie I saw. Three dashes, three dots, three dashes. 'Save our Souls'." Trip grins at her, and when she looks down at her friend she can see the young golden woman can fight the effects of the sedative no longer.

Just before she fades, Hoshi tells her; "You did well. As soon as I started getting 'O-S-O' I knew it had to come from _you_."

xx

When Jonathan Archer enters the Sick Bay, he finds Phlox in the main area, Tia Anlor and Elizabeth Cutler side by side on two diagnostic tables. It is hardly surprising that they are not alone, that Tucker, Sato and Cein stand on either side and between them. Seeing that everything is under 'control', he steps over to Phlox, Ensign Samuels breaking away from her consultation at his approach, going over to check the condition of the two women.

Archer keeps walking slowly past him, the Denobulan following him to the far end of the room. He turns, keeping his voice low, but able to see the six across the room. "How are they?"

"Surprisingly better than one might expect." Phlox answers, his voice equally mild so it will not carry across the room. At Archer's look of surprise, he explains. "Of the two, Tia was, of course, much more severely injured. I barely had enough of her blood stockpiled; it was a near thing. But we may be grateful that whoever shot her was apparently an excellent marksman. He hit her directly in the center of her chest, where a human heart would be and the same for their race, as I learned from Crewwoman Sarah Dutton's report on the Corporal the rescue team brought aboard.

"But the Auran heart, as you know, is over ten centimeters lower than in a human. The bullet broke through her sternum, which is fortunately also somewhat thicker and stronger than a human's. All her bones are so, due to evolution in Aura's higher gravity."

"That accounts for her greater strength." Archer at least knew that much. The young woman did not _look_ as strong as she was, but several of the crew had found just how deceptive appearances could be.

"Ironically, it was the abuse she suffered during her life on Aura that saved her." Archer allows his incomprehension to show on his face. "She was subjected to many 'punishments' by the Silurians and their Auran collaborators. Apparently she could be quite stubborn." Archer smiles at the Denobulan's understatement; he has had plenty of experience in just how stubborn the Auran woman can be. "When bones are broken and heal, there is an extra buildup of calcium over the break. Her sternum was broken several times in her life, so there is considerable extra deposit there.

"The bullet broke through and came to rest five centimeters deeper. It missed both aorta, passing right between them. A centimeter either way, and she would have bled to death in seconds."

"_Both_ aorta?" This is the first he's heard of two. He decides he really should take the time to learn more about his crew, beyond their records and service, and what he can learn of them personally.

"Oh yes. They run parallel from her six chambered heart up behind the sternum to the brain, thence following a pretty much normal course through the body, except for the blood paths being independent after leaving the heart. That's also why she has a triple heartbeat as opposed to the human double; it's necessary for the proper mingling of gold, klinasy and oxygen in the extra chambers. Klinasy, as you know, links with both gold and oxygen. Without it, life for her species is impossible; she would suffocate in minutes."

Archer shakes his head, disturbed by the thought that in a room full of breathable air a member of his crew could be gasping for breath, unable to get any oxygen at all; could choke to death, possibly right before his eyes; and there would be nothing he could do about it. The mental image is unsettling, one he does not want to dwell upon.

x

"Tell me about this Corporal."

"Alah Korvakai. I've just seen her. She's in Decon; for her own protection rather than ours. Her entire body is severely degraded due to her imprisonment. She's suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and the numerous ills incident to long captivity. We're feeding her basic proteins and nutrients intravenously; her system will not be ready for solid food in sufficient quantity for several days, and we are rehydrating her as rapidly as possible, also intravenously."

"You can help her, of course." He says, thinking of the possible future should these people be amenable to any help Starfleet might be able to offer.

"Better than she will allow."

The wording concerns Archer. "How so?"

"Among her injuries is a shattered right hand. All the bones were broken some weeks ago and allowed to 'heal' without medical attention. Her hand is gnarled, almost immobile; essentially useless. I told her that with surgery to repair her bones, and with reconstruction of her nervous and muscular systems, I could give her back 90 percent usage of her hand. She refused."

"Why?"

"Maimed as she is, she is ineligible for active duty. If I restore her hand, she will be put back on the lines. Apparently, her captivity has left her with little love left for fighting." He does not express his feelings in words about her choice to go through the rest of her life with this disability. He does not have to.

'Starfleet has to do something to help these people.' Archer thinks. The thought of just breaking orbit and leaving these people at war with one another is intolerable. But he can just hear Admiral Maxwell Forrest now:

'I'm sorry, Jon, but if these people won't listen, there's not a lot you can do.'

'I have to find some way to get them to listen.'

x

"Now, what about Ms. Cutler?" He asks; trying to get onto something he can do something about. She is his _real_ concern, even if he had to deal with 'business' first. "Travis said she feared she'd nearly lost her baby."

Phlox shakes his head with the almost patronizing smile of a doctor to a layman. "The embryo was never in any danger. Even had it been a fetus … Captain, evolution has placed so many safeguards in a human body that blunt force trauma, even of the level reported by Ensign Mayweather, could not have had any effect upon the embryo. It has not, after all, even been five and a half weeks since conception. Had she not been so emotionally overwhelmed by her trauma she would have realized that for herself." He drops his voice then, and his smile vanishes.

"I am more concerned, actually, with what happened during the rescue. Not only did she seek revenge upon her assailant, assaulting him in turn several times; which fact I can understand; but she lost emotional control to such a degree that she turned a gun on Ensign Mayweather, and the report I just read indicates he believes she was about to fire.

"Further, had Lieutenant Reed not stopped her, she would have murdered her former assailant."

"Doctor…"

"Yes, I know. She was under extraordinary stresses, but I have to consider her emotional well being and, quite frankly, her stability under less stressful conditions. Until I am satisfied, I am ordering a 'Period of Observation' for her."

Archer is not at all happy to hear this, but in matters of medicine even he cannot overrule the doctor's judgment. "Does she know?"

"Not yet. I'll be speaking to her soon, after further evaluation. It _may_ not be necessary. Until then, I am going to assign her to work closely with Mother McCabe. Perhaps that will be what she needs."

Archer looks across the room at her, watching as she holds Jim Cein's hand and they talk quietly. Tucker and Sato have already left, Anlor is asleep and Samuels has gone to Decon to check on Korvakai. "I'd hate for her to think we don't trust her."

"So would I. But anyone who would turn a deadly weapon on a fellow officer makes me … concerned."

Archer breaks his gaze, turning back to Phlox. "Let me know how this plays out."

"Yes, sir."

Continued in 'Fractured'.


End file.
